Faith of the Heart

The past few years have been a series of disasters and sorrows that threaten to engulf us all. The chance of peace, liberty, and the general betterment of humanity that appeared at the end of the Cold War has either been squandered by greedy and narrow minded people or given the nature of Homo Sapiens was just a mirage from the start. But still, hope lingers for a better world and can never be quite extinguished. What hope? The hope that at some point all people will realize that we either stand together or will surely fall separately. That liberty and justice denied at the expense of some will in time come to mean liberty and justice denied to all. That enjoying security and prosperity while denying it to others is evil but that wallowing in ignorance and apathy and blaming others for it is just as bad. The hope that at some point the we will realize that the promises offered by those willing only for power and prestige are hollow and that we ourselves are the best agents of change for a better world. That true leadership seeks not to make history but to inspire others to work for a common good. The hope that at some point we will recognize that our differences make us stronger as long as people respect the beliefs of others who disagree with us and hold fast that in the end we all want to see our children grow up in peace.

All that is a tall order with nothing these days appearing to offer any chance of us seeing anything like that soon. But still we have to work toward those goals, hold fast to our courage and desire to see better days and have a little faith of the heart.

Coastal Dead Zones and the hairless primate

Map showing coastal dead zones. Map also showing range of hairless primate responsible for the dead zones.





Just when you thought all you had to worry about was terrorism, global warming, a new Cold War, economic recession, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, falling home prices, a failing health care system, and John McCain in the Oval Office butchering a Beach Boys song with his finger on the nuclear button as Cindy looks on in a Stepford wife daze smiling. I have one more item to fill you with cheer, at least if you have had your happy pills prescription filled and been doing your modern American duty and been taking them like good sheep.

In my last post I lamented how uncontrolled and careless development has wrecked much of the environment and the way of life of the southeast coastal areas. I also touched on how in the bizarre, at least to me, desire to imitate old English country estates huge amounts of fertilizer is used to keep those lawns nice and green. But the question never really seems to be asked by those using all that stuff is where does all those chemicals go once it has seeped down into the ground? The answer is the coastal waters that act as the base of the food chain and a nursery to much aquatic life we eat. That's right folks, those juicy shrimp you ate Red Lobster a few days ago just didn't materialize in their freezer but had to be born and develop in coastal waters. But with everything the United States already faces why should we be worried about just a bunch of little fishes and crustaceans? Well writing strictly from a bias point of view if the biospheres of the coastal waters collapse the ripple effect will move up the food chain to the hairless primate whose environment is an easy chair in front of the huge LCD screen mounted on the wall watching television. Maybe once something effects that primate's lifestyle beyond material goods like the SUV, the McMansion, or easy credit he or she might just pay some attention. But by that time it will be too late.

"Dead Zones" Multiplying Fast, Coastal Water Study Says
Anne Minardfor National Geographic News
August 14, 2008

"Dead zones" are on the rise, says a new study that identified stark growth in the number of coastal areas where the water has too little oxygen to sustain marine life. There are now more than 400 known dead zones in coastal waters worldwide, compared to 305 in the 1990s, according to study author Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Those numbers are up from 162 in the 1980s, 87 in the 1970s, and 49 in the 1960s, Diaz said. In the 1910s, four dead zones had been identified.Diaz and co-author Rutger Rosenberg, of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, said in a press release that dead zones are now "the key stressor on marine ecosystems" and "rank with overfishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as global environmental problems."Their study appears in the August 15 issue of the journal Science.Dead ZonesDead zones occur when excess nutrients—usually nitrogen and phosphorus—from agriculture or the burning of fossil fuels seep into the water system and fertilize blooms of algae along the coast.As the microscopic plants die and sink to the ocean floor, they feed bacteria, which consume dissolved oxygen from surrounding waters. This limits oxygen availability for bottom-dwelling organisms and the fish that eat them.(Related story: "Ocean Dead Zones Growing; May Be Linked to Warming" [May 1, 2008])Many marine ecosystems experience low oxygen levels between spring and fall, Diaz said. But the lack of oxygen becomes persistent if nutrient levels stay high.Earth's largest dead zone, in the Baltic Sea, experiences oxygen deprivation year-round, the press release said. The second largest dead zone surrounds the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite decades of efforts to clean up U.S. rivers and lakes, high nitrogen levels are currently combining with strong water flow to make that dead zone larger than it has ever been.Government-supported scientists not involved with Diaz's review are forecasting an expansion of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone to a record 8,800 square miles (23,000 square kilometers), an area larger than New Jersey. (Related story: "Gulf of Mexico "Dead Zone" Is Size of New Jersey" [May 25, 2005])Nancy Rabalais, executive director and professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, said the paper "shows that there is a lot of lost production of [seafloor] animals—those living in the sediments—that could be food" for fishery stocks. Diaz and Rosenberg note in the press release that dead zones tend to be overlooked until they start to affect organisms that people eat. Mixed EffortsSome local and regional governments have stepped in with conservation and cleanup efforts to combat dead zones.Maryland, for instance, gives $18 million a year in grants to farmers who plant additional crops after their harvest to absorb leftover fertilizer before it ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. Rabalais, who was not involved in the Diaz review, said she has seen little sustained effort to combat nutrient runoff in the Mississippi River. "In the recent years of increased acreage of corn and biofuels, the amount of fertilizer used and the amount of nitrogen per volume of Mississippi River water has increased dramatically," Rabalais said. "What we have is this pulse of nutrients that are coming down our rivers every year," Diaz added. "Somehow we have to find a way to stop that. "The loss of fertilizer is an economic drain on the industry. It is not something the farming community wants to happen, and controlling it is the key to controlling the spread of dead zones."

Lowcountry Blues

Driving along the southeast coast now it would be hard to understand the enormity of the changes that have come about due to the population shift southward and the resulting development as people made new lives in this region. Just in my lifetime I have seen the quality of life on several fronts improve greatly as new ideas and money from the north helped to enhance health care, education, and the general infrastructure of the south. As development increased new opportunities in the form of high paying jobs lifted many poor black and white folks out of poverty giving the children of these families a better chance at life. Yes, over the last forty years the south has benefited from all the people that have moved down here and the changes that came with them to what was once a hot, humid, backward place.

However, like all good things once you have too much of it at some point a line is crossed in which you begin to spoil, then destroy, the object of your affection whether it is a person, place, or a thing. As time has passed the development that lifted many of the locals out of poverty has strangely reversed and now forces many to leave the coast and near coastal areas because the building of high priced McMansions has raised property taxes and insurance costs beyond the reach of many. Families that have lived for generations on the coast making their livings from fishing, farming, or other enterprises are uprooted and sent elsewhere as condos, outlet malls, and golf courses take their place.

The local environment also suffers as residents seek to recreate miniature country estates with perpetual green lawns thinking nothing of the chemicals they spray and how it leeches back into the water and into the swamps, marshes, then the ocean. Swamps and marshes provide a much needed, but overworked these days, filter of what we in ignorance dump into the ocean and expose to the base of the oceanic food chain which always finds its way back to us. A recent study that aired on the Discover Channel made a connection between Bull shark attacks on humans and the pollution in those shallow waters which either drove away or killed the local aquatic life Bull sharks eat.

As construction for homes, golf courses and the likes have moved into lower lying areas such as swamps and marshes there has been an increase in how far tropical storms can move inland and retain their strength causing greater damage to lives and property. One of the factors that needs to be understood is how swamps and marshes provide a buffer against extreme weather. As a storm moves ashore they absorb much of the destructive surge of water as it moves further inland stealing much of its energy.

For these, and other, reasons I haven’t been real thrilled these last few years at the billboards, television commercials, or bright glossy magazine ads that proclaim the construction of another grand condo or plantation development, golf course, or outlet mall. In 1990 while driving to college on the highway that connects Conway and Myrtle beach, South Carolina that then was hugely undeveloped I saw a young black bear come running out of the woods. He or she stopped right at the edge of the highway, looked both ways like some child getting ready to cross the road then thought better of crossing and ran back into the swampy woods he or she had just came out of without looking back. On a trip to Myrtle Beach a few years later after moving to Columbia I saw that the same road was covered with Burger Clown clones, convenience stores, strip and outlet malls, motels, and of course entrances to several “professionally designed” golf courses. Aghast at how each establishment butted up against the other I wondered about that juvenile bear and if the road itself sent in scurrying back into the woods then what in the world would all the multiple redundant businesses that seemed to sit atop each other do to it now? That is if that bear is even still in the proverbial, but shrinking, woods and not occupying some gray concrete chamber in some seedy zoo. While nature seems to be on a permanent retreat unable to stem the tide of civilization in the form of real estate agents, golf pros, or outlet store managers I do remember one incident in which nature at least fought it to a momentary standstill.

My in-laws had migrated down south themselves in the very late 80’s from Richmond, Virginia in search of the “easy life” after all their kids had left the nest for work and college. After searching several locations, including my hometown strangely enough before I had even meet Dragonwife, they settled at some plantation development (glorified over priced subdivision) just off Hilton Head Island and had purchased a small retail business located on the island. By 1994 Dragonwife and I were married and often came down from Columbia to see her folks and for several complicated reasons my wife liked to help at the retail store her parents owned. That left me able to amble around the island, usually at the beach, when Dragonwife didn’t have some chore for me to do.

During one visit in the summer of 1994 Dragonwife had volunteered to mind the store on a Saturday but wanted me to pick her father up from the golf course he was playing at around noon so we all could go get some lunch. I was to meet him at the bar located at the end of the golf course and when I walked into the place I knew I had made a slight mistake. I had spent that morning at the beach and while I had dropped by the in-law’s place to clean up and change I was still just wearing baggy shorts, an old surfer t-shirt, and sandals. Everyone else in the place was wearing fashionable, if not outright chic, golfing clothes. I don’t think a leper, a chain saw carrying psycho, or even worse for those already inside a progressive liberal Democrat would have drawn more stares or gasps as I did walking into the place. Never the less I made my way to the bar, ordered a beer, and began waiting for my father-in-law.

While I had nothing in common with the other customers other than breathing air and as far as they were concerned being a member of the same Hominidae family if scientific classification was an interest, the bar itself was pretty nice. It had lots of wood paneling with many of the tables in semi-private alcoves and with the booths offering outright privacy due to the way the paneling almost surrounded them. As it would be expected the lighting was muted giving the place a sense of mystery and secrecy. As I looked around I could tell there were several couples taking full advantage of the privacy offered by the booths with sensual female laughter and stifled male giggles coming from some every now and then. Closer to the bar I was sitting at a common area had several tables arranged around a large television mounted on the wall. Groups of people were sitting at the tables watching a golfing tournament completely engrossed in how the little white dimpled balls were finding their way into tiny cups with the aid of men with grossly expensive clubs that probably cost more than my car.

The bar itself held just me in front sitting on a stool and the African-American bartender working behind it. The bartender was always doing something, either rearranging the vast collection of bottles on the counter behind him or wiping down the bar. I, at least, had the luxury to do nothing and just to stare out the huge tinted plate glass window just above the back counter that held the collection of bottles the bartender rearranged and over looked the final segment of the golf course. In the distance I saw several ancient oak trees that had been incorporated into the design of the course. Long oak limbs from the trees lying close to the ground draped with Spanish moss gave me the impression of weary old ladies wearing lace. A little further off you could see a small segment of the marsh and thicker native vegetation standing on either side of that small segment almost standing guard against the bulldozers and developers with their dreams of endless condos. By sheer happenstance overhearing conversations on previous visits I knew that at one time the golf course and the bar I was in was once a “dark, nasty swamp full of snakes and gators.” With that knowledge I was already predisposed to see the excellently manicured grass of the golf course as an alien invader out to conquer all that was right and true on the Earth. Nevertheless, even the course itself held some aesthetically pleasing qualities as it rose and fell creating ridges and valleys with a couple of sand and water traps placed around the final hole marked by a tiny flag flapping in the breeze. Increasing the alien nature of the course lying just out of one of the water traps was a gator sunning himself.


Minutes later if the medium sized leftover saurian lying close to the water trap noticed he was under attack by a collection of small white dimpled balls he gave no indication. Two of the three balls landed closer to the tiny flag sticking out of the cup but one rolled to stop right next one of the gator’s legs. Looking further down the course I saw a golf cart with three men aboard approaching the gator and what I’m sure were the golf balls they had just sent down range. They stopped a decent distance away from the gator and seemed to be discussing something. The three guys were obliviously in their later years in life (certified old farts) and were dressed in stylish golf attire that I’m sure matched all those around me in the bar in expense. At some point the three golfing buddies came to some sort of decision concerning the golf ball almost resting between two of the gator’s claws. They began walking toward the reptile waving their arms and apparently making sounds that I couldn’t hear in an attempt scare the gator back in the water. Despite the assumption I usually make concerning the wisdom of older people, trying to scare a gator for whatever reason is never an astute move. Wally Gator allowed the three to approach very close before he strung to life raising his head and showing off his fine collection of sharp white teeth. Mere seconds later I saw the gator swing his tail around in an attempt to contact one of the three hairless, but finely clothed, primates bothering him. I don’t believe the tail contacted with anyone but one of the guys did fall down on the grass but his buddies quickly dropped everything grabbed the fallen comrade and left clubs, the golf cart, and the greater portion of their dignity behind.

I appeared to be the only one in the bar who had noticed the latest clash between the orders of Crocodilia and Primates with the latter and all their vaulted intelligence and opposable thumbs coming up short. The bartender, ever alert, must have heard me chuckle slightly and came up and glanced out the window then asked if “Charles” had been disturbed by the golfers. Assuming that Charles was the gator who was still in the same place next the water trap maybe wondering if his kind would out live the primates like they had the dinosaurs I told the bartender yes, that it seemed Charles didn’t particularly care for them playing through. The bartender laughed himself and without asking handed me another beer and said it was on the house. Minutes later the three guys came in the bar with one of the three looking for me. My father-in-law didn’t look to bad except for the slight grass stain on the rear of his pants he got from avoiding the gator's tail and as we left and got in the car I didn’t even begin to ask how his game went and he sure as hell didn’t tell.

Father and Daughter Sunday meanderings

Neither Miss Wiggles nor myself are much inclined to hang around the house on the weekends. Gas prices and Dragonwife prevent us from jumping in the car and say doing a simple day trip to Charleston or its nearby beaches. But that doesn't stop us from visiting our favorite haunt close to home, Riverbanks Zoo.
This particular Sunday Wiggles and I bumped into one of her day care classmates along with his mom and dad. This classmate was the same one I called Clooney in an earlier post. Once they saw each other they ran up and gave each other hugs and started walking the zoo like Clooney's parents and I were not even there. Their hand holding was automatic and they did it all through the zoo until time forced us to split off.





As we walked around a brief stop at the Lemur island had me confused. Unlike the highly energetic guys in the movie Madagascar none of these fellas seemed much inclined to "move it, move it." My only possible conclusion was that these Lemurs were born in the south and had long since adapted to the laid back, carefree, lazy attitude many still hold on to despite the increased pace of life. Now the penguins over in the bird house exhibit all had shifty eyes and like the movie seemed slightly psychotic. I had a hard time deciding which of the two I liked best.








Trying to keep my site family friendly and all that but click on the picture here and you might be able to see a Galápagos tortoise doing his duty trying to make baby tortoises. As I have written several times I am a regular at the zoo having first taken my son, Darth Spoilboy, until he thought it was uncool, and now Miss Wiggles many times. During our visits in the warmer months over the years I have seen this old coot constantly answering the call to reproductive duty. One thing can be certain is that the old coot is really enjoying himself given that you can hear his efforts all the way to the entrance of the zoo at times. Whether the lady tortoise receiving the old coot's energetic affection is enjoying it as much as him is highly doubtful since as we went around we saw she was drawn up inside her shell. What little we saw of her head suggested she was fast asleep as the old coot was doing his business. How this situation might cross species lines going all the way to marital relations between Homo Sapiens I will not touch.



Thought this was only going to be pictures at the zoo did you? No, after leaving the zoo, Wiggles and I traveled over to the South Carolina State Museum in which we have a membership as well. When I moved up to the Midlands in 1993 I resisted for months before checking the place out. I thought what in the hell could they have at that museum that would interest me? I was seriously wrong. One section has displays showing the various environments in the state from the mountains to the coast. This display is at least 180 degree around and has recorded beach sounds and right at the board walk sand dunes and sea oats. If you step right to the forward edge and look straight at the picture I have many times transported myself to my favorite place in the world, the south end of Pawleys Island.






Who said God or evolution didn't have a sense of humor? Another section shows recreations of various animals that lived in South Carolina that went extinct. This here fellow is a Glyptodont which lived in the marshy areas of South Carolina during the Pleistocene period. At the end of the last Ice Age they walked like a dinosaur into extinction due to the warming climate. Which begs the question of whether an equally bizarre creature called corporate republicans will go extinct as the world warms up again this time due to man-made global warming.










As Wiggles walked around the very small section displaying the reconstructed fossilized dinosaur bones I couldn't help but think the second worse place to be around a Tyrannosaurs Rex would be here at his or her rear end. Of course the worst place would be in front of a T. Rex as he or she flashed their toothy smile.




















This is not a good picture I know, but no matter how I tried given the lighting of the museum I couldn't decent picture of this full scale replica of the C.S.S. Hunley. At least this one shows the small interior as the crew hand cranked the propeller. As someone who suffers from claustrophobia I just have a hard time seeing how eight guys could fit inside a small metal tube, hand crank the sub to move, and attack a naval vessel. After sinking the Housatonic in 1864, the Hunley was lost and became part of Civil War legend. The actual Hunley was found in 1995 and was raised in 2000.
The museum naturally has a huge section devoted just to the Civil War period covering the Antebellum lifestyle to the actual war and Reconstruction.









Currently at the SC State Museum is a section concerning the years of the Vietnam era and its effects on this state. I could have made a post just from what was on display concerning this era but just because the actions involved college students from the University of South Carolina and their surprising behavior during this time as compared to the students now I've tried to boil down the history. I had no idea about this anti-war movement at the University of South Carolina in the 1960's ever occurred. It strangely began in 1966 when a Captain Henry Levy, an army dermatologist serving at Fort Jackson, was charged with disobedience of lawful orders and promoting disloyalty among soldiers for advising troops not to serve in Vietnam. He was convicted by court martial and sentenced to three years in prison.
A year late an organization called "Summer of Support"opened up something called the UFO Cafe in Columbia to provide a place for soldiers, draftees and others "to speak freely about the war in Indo-China." Due to the UFO Cafe's nature, strong pressure was applied to force it to close and in 1970 after both the involvement of city police and FBI the owners were charged and it was closed.





Apparently the students didn't care for the strong-arm actions that caused the closing of the UFO Cafe and they became involved in protests. The local solicitor John Foard made things worse by instructed local law enforcement to enter the campus in search of drugs. As students protested the campus searches they increasingly began protesting the Vietnam war. In May of that year students staged a sit-in at a campus building. Students roamed the campus for two days throwing bottles, bricks, and rocks at the police and National Guard. What was thought to be students then occupied the main administration building causing extensive damage. Later evidence would come to light that it was actually government agents among the students that caused the destruction trying to frame the actual student protesters. The governor at the time imposed a curfew that many students ignored. At least 200 students were arrested and male students had their beards and heads shaved while they were in detention. Who in the hell would ever guess such activity would have ever occurred in South Carolina . Several times I have written that the reason I believe we don't see much anti-war activity now as compared to the 60's is because that not only did we have a draft then forcing a greater cross section of the country to serve, and possibly die, but more people had a direct connection with those serving bringing the effects of war straight to the home. From my observations the Iraq war has moved into the realm of simple episodic television to a great many of people who have no personal connection to the war and who change the channel whenever it gets boring, and for most Americans it has long since become boring.







A really cool display has a scale model of one of the Mars rovers that you can control from the station in the picture. I must admit that my attention drifted away from Miss Wiggles as I moved the rover over the mock Martian surface dreaming of exploring the Red planet. Miss Wiggles had been content to play with several of the science experiment displays in the next room with other children her age so while I was deploying the sensor on the rover I did not see her climb onto the mock Martian surface and try to talk with the rover in which she had confused with WALL-E. Go figure, in a way my daughter has walked the surface of Mars. Needless to say I got her off the planet before security brought us both back to Earth.







The Apollo space suit of a South Carolina native.
Charles M. Duke Jr., a former Air Force pilot, became an astronaut in 1966. He has degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Duke family lived in Pageland when he was born in 1935. He attended school in Lancaster, where his family still lives. Before becoming an astronaut, Duke was graduated from, and was an instructor at the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
He is the first astronaut from South Carolina and the only South Carolinian to walk on the moon. Well hell, my daughter walked on Mars just minutes before I took this picture.














Its very hard to get my son to understand that the lifestyle he knows was very different just a few decades ago. The high-tech washer and dryers of today that allow him just to throw in his clothes and a little detergent to get them clean anytime required a lot more effort not so long ago. Laundry was such a chore that something called "Blue Monday" came about since they had already worn their Sunday best the day before.
This washer is from 1910 and the wringer above was what you used to squeeze most of the water out the clothes before hanging them on a line to dry. One of my fondest memories was to see the clothes that my grandmother hung out on the line in her yard blow in the wind. I loved to smell them as well but if she found one of her bed sheets messed up from some little kid playing around them she would get as mad as a wet hen.











Another relic of a past world that far too many would find amazing. As a kid I remember Georgetown having a couple of phone booths on Front Street that I liked to play in while my mother shopped until one day the door on one got stuck and I couldn't get out. A local police officer saw me and got me out fairly quickly and after that phone booths sort of freaked me out, like clowns. Scary.
Later on when I was a "little older" me and a friend would call one of those phone booths just to see who would answer. When I told my son about this he gave me the usual look were I know he was wondering about my sanity. I just shrug it off and tell him that before video games kids were simply desperate for anything to do.















This display did its best to introduce the subject of slavery to visitors. I say introduce since its been way over a hundred years since the end of that "peculiar institution" and you might be chilled to the bone over the various people who even now will find ways to make excuses for it. And given how many would just as well ignore the whole subject I still don't believe enough of about the institution of slavery is taught and how it still affects the entire country.
Despite reading the history and at least understanding the principles of why slavery existed I find the concept of owning another human being about as outright alien as they come.










Believe it or not this outhouse is from a church in Spartanburg county and its was actively used until 1982 when the church that used it installed indoor plumbing. Yes, bitter cold or the hot humid summer days and nights made a trip to allow nature to work very uncomfortable. So the newspapers you see inside were not primarily there for reading material. And for those who don't know what I'm talking about no, the toilet paper ain't missing.

Digging our way out of a hole.

Pickensplan.com

"To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America,"

-Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club

While I freely admit that I am far from ever being the sharpest knife in any drawer I did have to pause and again wonder about my fellow countrymen and women lately. The “Current Occupant” of the White House saw fit to try and once again bully Congress to give one final gift to his friends in the energy business in the form of allowing oil drilling off American shores. Never mind that in many countries a man holding office with his approval ratings would be sweating at night worried over a possible coup most in the Democratic controlled Congress have never received delivery of their spines and have been more than willing to bend over an squeal like a piggy on a regular basis.

Seeing fit to take advantage of those spongy folks in Congress Bush spoke on television recently about how he had dropped the executive order issued by Daddy Bush barring offshore drilling and began asking the public to put pressure on their congressional leaders to force them to rescind one passed by an earlier Congress. The reasons he gave were what gave me pause to wonder about the old conspiracy theories that said fluoride in drinking water was a commie plot to undermined American will making them placid cattle subject to control.

Our esteemed and respected president citing a CNN report is quoted:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush lifted an executive order banning offshore oil drilling on Monday and urged Congress to follow suit. Citing the high prices Americans are paying at the pump, Bush said from the White House Rose Garden that allowing offshore oil drilling is "one of the most important steps we can take" to reduce that burden. However, the move is largely symbolic as there is also a federal law banning offshore drilling.

"This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil reserves is action from the U.S. Congress," Bush said.

My bewilderment in all this is that it will take years before any of this oil makes it to market. Leases have to be sold, exploration rigs will drill many dead holes before finding any substantial oil, and all sorts of logistical issues have to be settled as rigs and people are put in place. For shits and giggles and to avoid a conflict of interest, I won’t even touch on my environmental concerns. Because when the high paid energy company lackeys in the media swear up and down they can drill without screwing up the oceans and coastal environments I don’t believe them for a minute. However, if drilling did take place demand is growing at an astronomical rate in countries like China and India and our own demand for the black crack is not about to slow down even with the new found popularity in hybrids and SUV’s being sold for close to nickels on the dollar. So if anyone is buying the argument that drilling off American shores will bring back the glory days of 2.50$ gallon of gas I have some used charcoal that I should be able to sell them as diamonds. If they bought into Bush’s con job of solving our energy addiction by drilling for even more oil they will buy into anything.

Once again I have bumped into another guy who has a plan that could end our addiction to oil, help the environment, and allow us to pull down our pants and instead of squealing like a pig for the assorted fruits and nuts of OPEC tell them to kiss our ass. But, as always, it’s just the question of getting the amorphous mass of the Mr. and Mrs. Middleclass to stop whining and do something.

Meeting Mickey Spillane

Author's note: My original version of this story was posted on my previous blog. Before I switched over to this blog I saved everything including the original version of this story to my computer's hard drive which was lost not long later due to my procrastination in burning my old posts to a CD and my son downloading a virus which destroyed everything on the hard drive. Due to my hearing a rebroadcast of the "Fresh Air" interview of Mr. Spillane I felt the need to rewrite the story for no other reason than to acknowledge a good deed that he did for a young scared kid.


One of my favorite programs on National Public Radio is “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. I’m not big on listening too much of what the rich and famous like to whine about on other interview shows. But many times Ms. Gross has been able to open up various subjects and people I could have cared less about and making the topic or people interesting to me. Her interviews dig deeper than the superficial People magazine or Entertainment Tonight pieces that usually have some loony pop diva or whacked out actor expounding on their latest trip to rehab or their new diet of lawn clipping and tequila. Ms. Gross is able to draw out a real person and their beliefs most of the time with the exceptions I’ve heard being Gene Simmons who acted like a prick on her show and Bill O’Rielly who really was one. Then there was the show that they rebroadcast recently were she interviewed Mickey Spillane and I still got the strong feeling that after countless interviews where she handled many an overbearing personality she had a hard time coming to grips with a guy who was to use an old saying from my grandparents time: “common as an old shoe.” Of course I’m bias since I carry the memory of when I encountered the great writer as a young kid with him helping me out in a tough situation down in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina.

It was the mid-70’s and my parent’s marriage was a roller coaster ride of reconciliation and estrangement. Their marriage never was solid even going back to days before any of my siblings were born. As my siblings arrived both seemed unable to adjust to the added stress with each moving off into their own little worlds unable to come to terms fully with the children they each brought into the world. My father never was an emotional man often given to bouts of moodiness and outright detachment. My mother existed in her own little world full of stories of opportunities for a career she lost due to marriage and children. Where as my father grew detached and more distant over time my mother took refuge in a bottle and ever more elaborate fantasies of what she could have been, all the while increasing the circle of those guilty of holding her back. Given the times we lived and the general stigma that divorce still held in the South instead of ending the misery of their marriage they continued to be drawn together like a suicidal moth to a hot flame.

For some reason I can't even begin to understand my parents tried again to reconcile this time living on the mainland side of Pawleys Island in a trailer park just off the south causeway leading to the island, but it fared no better than their other previous attempts. After months of battles between the two involving all sorts of crimes, both real and imagined, my father arranged the purchase of another trailer and had it setup on the far end of Murrells Inlet off some dirt road. After months of enduring their strange behavior both my siblings and I soon came to appreciate the move and the relative peace that set in as we settled into our new home as the summer began. Like most good things though, it was never meant to last for long.

For those who don’t know Murrells Inlet even today bills itself as the seafood capital of South Carolina. Driving up Highway 17 just north of the Litchfield area unless you see the sign you still stand a good chance of missing the spur off the highway leading into the village. Many times I have written about the almost hidden coastal village of Pawleys Island but Pawleys to a great degree was always a destination more than an actual town. During the 70’s and earlier while there was a population of locals on the island itself it was still a place that drew tourists staying in one of the many rental beach houses and were wealthier types own second homes. The only difference was that the tourists did not come from as far away as they do now and had the consideration to leave once their vacation was over. Murrells Inlet on the other hand was always a working fishing village. But over the centuries it had also offered a haven for pirates, Confederate blockade runners, and during that time the occasional boat full of marijuana and its crew. How I know about the last one I will never tell, at least until I know for sure the statue of limitations has run out. For the first few months of the renewed separation between my parents it also became a haven for my siblings and me. The trailer park offered many things to keep children occupied before the advent of music videos and video games drew them inside for most of the day.

Behind our trailer was a rather large swath of woods that allowed us to run through viewing the occasional wild turkey, numerous possums, and the foot print evidence of a local bobcat that my grandfather identified during a visit. Many days would find my brothers, my sister, and me running through the woods with me carrying the BB gun trying to stalk the phantom bobcat or hunt squirrels so my grandfather could teach us how to clean and dress it to make squirrel purlow like he did as a child during the Depression. Yes, a few of the furry critters gave their life in our efforts. Just a little further down was a L-shaped pond that I’m now sure was artificial but never the less held many nice sized bream and a few small bass that we fished for many times early in the summer mornings. The trailer park we lived in had only recently been cleared and opened up and only a few other trailers had been setup and all were spread out leaving a huge area for playing without having to worry about making too much noise.

My mother’s mentally peaceful period ended upon the start of the school year. It was always difficult to judge when the dark clouds inside my mother would developed. Her alcoholism helped to bring it on but often times it was difficult to tell what was the cause and what was the effect since she could literally wake up one morning after weeks of being human and begin accusing everyone around her of disloyalty, lies, and holding her back for which she would start to drink. The really scary times were when she got this soulless, feral look in her eyes that seemed to suggest any sort of mayhem was possible. You just knew she would go for the belt which would be used to punish us for the most minor infraction. During these periods my grandparents did their best to blunt the worst of her bad times, when they knew about them. My mother had a fantastic acting ability to mask her darker moods from everyone. Being the oldest I did my best to keep track of her actual state of mind but even I was painfully caught short at times after returning home and she discarded her act of normalcy like some cheap Halloween mask.

Mr. Spillane’s appearance and help while brief and minor did much to defuse a glowing rage my mother had late one weekday afternoon. I’ve tried to pin down what drew the great mystery and crime writer to Murrells Inlet and the best I can discern was that he came to the Myrtle Beach area sometime during the 50’s after being invited to some sort of celebration that was being used to draw more tourists down. He somehow stumbled upon Murrells Inlet, which during that time was even more cutoff and secluded than when I lived there, and fell in love with the place, enough that to the best of my knowledge it cost him his marriage at that time. But to this day I’m thankful he did since his timely help may have saved my siblings and me.

Mom’s drinking could either be like a mad flood in which she quickly consumed enough beer and hard liquor to cause her to pass out, which could be a small blessing. At other times it was slow and steady which almost always fed whatever demons that lived inside her. These were the worst times to be around her since reality, even in her sober moments, was an ill defined thing subject to a whole manner of influences but drinking made it far worse. We were all home playing outside when she realized that there was nothing for her to make for breakfast the next morning. My siblings and I were rounded up and loaded into her Chevrolet Caprice that not many months later would carry us all across country as she chased the voices inside her head. Our destination was an old fashioned general store not very far down the road but the last thing I was worried about was my mother wrecking the car while under the influence. She had this almost supernatural ability to drive perfectly while heavily drunk and still gulping down a rum and coke she had mixed up before leaving the house.

We pulled into the parking lot of the general store with her sipping her drink and leaving the car running so she could listen to her music. She handed me a five dollar bill and gave me a list of various items that I was not to deviate from in the least, she assured me a whipping would result if I did. Wanting to get back home and outside away from her I quickly walked into the store and looked for the needed items placing them on the counter as two guys talked nearby. The clerk was a rather tall mustached fellow who owned the store and had always been kind to me whenever I went inside. The second guy sitting on a stool drinking something I don’t remember looked to me like a short fireplug of a fellow equally jovial and lighthearted. Right off the bat they could tell I was nervous asking me if anything was wrong. I was only eleven years old at the time and it was beyond my ability to explain to them that my mom was in a possible dangerous frame of mind due to her drinking. I knew enough that when confronted before she could without hesitation don her mask of civilized behavior and act out abject puzzlement over how anyone could believe she had any sort of problem. I don’t remember my answer but I sure I said everything was alright. Looking back while they might have accepted my answer they knew something terrible was wrong after seeing my reaction to the clerk telling me I did not have near enough money for the items I had brought to the counter. I felt like some cornered animal unable to fight or flee knowing that once my mother found out she would be instantly convinced I had lost the money between the car and the store. Repercussions upon returning home were sure to be swift and brutal. I’m not sure how much time passed between me being told of the lack of enough money and the gentleman on the stool coming up and looking into my eyes worried that I was hiding something but I remember him putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me it was going to be alright as he pulled out his wallet paying for the groceries and giving me a couple of dollars more along with returning the five dollar bill I walked in with. The clerk then asked me if I knew who the guy was that they knew had delivered me from some sort evil and I said no. The clerk then went on to tell me that my benefactor was none other than the famous writer Mickey Spillane. I, of course, had no idea who he was at that time but to this day I know he saved me from my mother’s rage that night.

I returned to the car carrying the bag full of groceries and sure enough my mother asked what had taken me so long. I told her that I did the best I could while giving her the couple of dollars Mr. Spillane had handed me. Like a petulant child the return of more change than she expected sent her clouded mind off onto another, calmer direction, I kept the five dollar bill hidden for weeks only breaking it out while staying with my grandparents one weekend. As we drove off I saw that the man identified to me as Mickey Spillane had walked out the store and had been observing the interaction I had with my mother. I could tell that it was more than a casual observation and that he was genuinely concerned over my fearful behavior. While I never saw Mr. Spillane again I was always touched by his simple gesture and concern. He will always be a king among men to me.

A Parrothead Review: WALL-E

For more time than I am willing to admit I’ve been trying to write something at least half way deserving of Disney/Pixar’s new film “WALL-E”. I’ve simply been unable to express in words how much of a home run the masters at Pixar have achieved yet again on several different levels. For me their high mark was “Finding Nemo” for both the story and how well the colors exploded on the screen as Marlin began his epic journey to find his son. While this movie was very different from all their others I have to say that it still held my daughter’s attention the entire time while offering some very adult ideas for grownups to mull over.

The opening scenes depart greatly from the bright living colors Pixar has done in its other movies. Dusty beige and browns dominate a dead world showing skyscrapers being overshadowed my huge towers of compacted trash. Flying over the long dead city we see huge signs everywhere for “Buy-N-Large” something that might be described as the mutant corporate offspring of a mating between Halliburton and Wal-Mart. From the visuals we learn “Buy-N-Large” dominated retail sales, banking, public transit, and just about every aspect of life before Earth was abandoned. At ground level we are shown mounds of un-compacted refuse and moving amongst the detritus we find Walle doing the job he was programmed to do seven-hundred years earlier. Walle is the last of his kind whose job it was to collect, compact, and organize the trash for some sort of global clean-up that the president of Buy-N-Large assured would take only five years as the planet was evacuated . During that time away from the planet people would enjoy having their every whim met by an armada of service robots aboard huge luxury starships. I will have to be forgiven but given the nature of Buy-N-Large apparent total global corporate takeover I had to wonder what happened to the poorer customers on the dying planet that may not have been able to afford a berth on the interstellar versions of the Love Boat.

Whatever the final disposition of humanity or the project Walle and his defunct kin were tasked with he goes about his daily chores but after many centuries the little robot has developed a curiosity about the discarded items he finds. Things like a cigarette lighter, common light bulb, and bubble wrap arouse his curiosity but his most treasured procession is a betamax copy of “Hello Dolly” that he watches at the end of his work day as he takes refuge in some sort of broken down transport. From this we also learn the little robot is not just curious but we are given numerous hints he has long since exceeded his programming and become a little lonely.

Things get interesting with the arrival of a spaceship that deposits a gleaming white robot that goes about scanning everything around it searching for something. The new robot is Eve and right from the start Walle is smitten over the new robotic stranger. At first Eve doesn’t even know Walle exists and comes close to blasting him to atoms a couple of times but after some close calls the two finally get to know each other. Walle eventually takes her to his place to show off his collection of humanity’s trash and to make some simple and innocent robotic moves on Eve. Eve is fairly unimpressed with Walle’s stuff until he shows her a simple living green weed that he had found while working and had transplanted to an old shoe. Eve quickly takes the plant, stores it inside her and shuts down. Walle is worried and heart broken but stands guard over her until to his surprise she is picked up by the same ship that dropped her off taking her off the planet. Like any guy in love Walle refuses to simply let her go and hitches a ride on the ship that takes her carrying him off as well.

I won’t go any deeper into the story, but I will say that to a great extent the situation and visuals do depart from the usual kid’s movie. I referred earlier to how Pixar scored a homerun with this movie because if you step back and look at the entire forest instead of just the simple trees this movie is a strong statement against mega-corporations that answer to no one, sickening American hyper-consumerism, and the destruction of the environment. For me, one of the funniest and strongest images had to do with Walle hanging onto the spaceship carrying Eve and passing real close to one of the Apollo landing sites. As the ship and Walle continues out we are shown a Buy-N-Large corporation sign proclaiming the impending construction of an outlet mall on the moon. Here in South Carolina as unregulated developed has destroyed much of what people came down south to enjoy in the way of nature and culture, after the golf course and gated communities outlet malls symbolize for me the worst aspects of the tourist industry and population growth.

Humans do make an appearance in this movie and right from the start I was intensely curious about Pixar actually having a real man and woman appear in film along with Fred Willard who makes a cameo as the global CEO of Buy-N-Large. As the movie progresses I learn why they went to the extreme to show real people. After seven-hundred years aboard luxury starships the descendants of those who fled Earth having their every whim met bear a far stronger resemblance to Jabba the Hut than the unnamed slim and attractive couple that Fred Willard’s character showed boarding the starship during the evacuation. Taking the couch potato syndrome to the bizarre people now move only by floating on some sort of ant-gravity easy chair never taking their eyes off a holographic screen floating in front of them. Legs are little more than numbs never used and the only use for arms is to reach for some super-sized drink that a tiny robot butler supplies a person as the last drink has been finished. At one point we are introduced to the human captain of the starship Walle ends up on while trying to stay with Eve. As the captain goes about his duties on the bridge we see behind him the seven-hundred year “evolution” of humans as the pictures of former captains’ show each one becoming just a little more rounder as the centuries progressed much in the same way a famous painting show humanity evolving from ape to Homo sapien. Lending much to the argument of me forcibly ending my son’s renewed interest in his Nintendo Wii and making him run a mile or two every couple of days.

Simply put this is a great movie. Some will completely miss all the images I write about and their greater meaning only seeing the entertainment value of a cute robot. Others will find this movie too preachy and maybe even some sort of liberal propaganda given that it dares to criticize in a cartoon manner the lifestyles and wasteful nature of many. Yes, I personally saw the greater meaning in the movie and I agreed with it completely. Decades ago when the world’s population was much smaller and poorer America committed the sin of blithely ignoring the waste and pollution it created and its affects on the rest of the world. Earth was a big place and the idea that little humans could make a harmful mark on it carried an air of arrogance they felt. Now we are approaching seven billion people on the planet with only fools and liars claiming that our actions and lifestyles are too small to affect the world we share. The difference this time it’s not just lazy Americans, the rest of the world after centuries of oppression and poverty wants what we have and quite simply the planet ain’t got it in her. Natural resources are running thin, despite some honest efforts pollution is getting worse, the oceans are threaten due to over fishing, and the entire planet is warming due to CO2 emissions. Several times half jokingly I’ve written how I believe humans are not an intelligent species. We seem unable to move beyond the basic survival program that millions of years have hardwired in our brains. At some point the species as a whole will have to acknowledge the fact that we cannot go on like we are currently. Adjustments and sacrifices will have to be made for the sake of everything will hold dear beyond the realm of material processions. With us Americans having to pull our collective asses from our butts and come to terms with what we have done for the sake of cheap CD’s and fast food. The humans in WALL-E had the chance to board spaceships and cruise among the stars to avoid the worst aspects of what they wrought. Here in the real world we will not have the same advantage and our own time is running out.