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September 1, 2009 Newsletter
Out Here, ACORNs Fall From the Oak Trees, and More...
We don't have ACORN (or HCAN or the SEIU) out here. Instead we have lots and lots of acorns falling out of oak trees. So what if it's still summer? Seasons are weird in West Texas. We have the Dry Season and the Rainy Season (from July4 until sometime usually in September), with the rest of the year being in the Dry Season...except in certain El Nino years NOT followed by a La Nina! In 2004, for instance, it rained from May until the following February! We got 60 inches! Our main creek ran from June until the following April! But, back to why I brought up ACORN...
Folks in the community are "organizing" without ACORN telling us how to do it. Has nothing to do with "Town Hall" meetings, either. (And besides, our Rep., Ciro Rodriguez--the same Rep who voted no on the bailouts but will not support Ron Paul's "Audit the Fed" bill--did his Town Hall meeting on HealthCare over the phone. I guess he saw what was coming, so he chickened out of the real deal. Didn't want to speak in front of the gaggle of Ron Paul supporters that live out here and in Alpine--Dr. No has LOTS of support out here, I am delighted to say!). Considering this was a very divided community only ten years or more ago, this is quite an accomplishment.
Not only was this community the site of the "Republic of Texas" standoff in April-May, 1997, there was a lawsuit against many of the property owners who had stopped paying maintanence fees for one reason or another, mostly because of faulty land surveys and prior lawsuits. After the suit was settled in 2000, there was still a lot of bitterness over it, and it took a while for things to get back to normal and for people to bring themselves to speak to those on the opposite sides of the suit. For instance, I am now buddy-buddy with an elderly couple that I wouldn't consider speaking to before the suit ended! Pretty much the bad vibes are gone out of this community, at least among full-time residents. This has allowed community groups to start doing things to help their neighbors.
From the very beginning of putting this site together, I have always insisted that if you are going to move out to the rural remote, especially full time, you must learn to get along with your neighbor! We are, I think, reaching the point where doing whatever it takes is going to be the only option. If things get as chaotic as some think they will (social upheaval, and the looting and crime that goes with it...or, on the other hand, the "Great Depression-like" destitution and begging in the streets type scenarios), wouldn't you want to know that you can trust your neighbors not to steal that extra gas can you've been saving for emergencies? All part of the preparation, folks, preparation.
Out here, "neighbors" aren't just those who live close to you because out here most neighbors do NOT live close to you (unless you consider a mile away close). So that "neighbor" can mean anyone who lives in your rural remote community. But since neighbors are miles apart, and with that the case, you might not even know your neighbors, period, a focal point is needed to bring neighbors together and it ought to be a place where one could easily meet with neighbors, such as a local church or country store or "community center." For some reason, our "community center" is NOT equipped for more than just property owner association monthly board meetings (there is a kitchen, but the Board has never allowed for non-board use...the Board is NOT the most forward-looking quasi-governmental group ever created, and in fact one can say with reasonable certainty, "What else would one expect from government?"), but our two churches are (one is Baptist, and the other is non-denominational, the one we attend). Plus, since the church has provided a safe haven when the creek was too high to cross, and has overnight facilities for several to sleep over, it is known to be a good meeting place and can provide community services (and the Baptist church has a mini-camp area that reminds me of youth hostels they have in Europe) in an emergency. At this time, the church (actually, both churches) "Men's Group" and "Women's Group" are doing things to bring together the residents-at-large, churchgoing or not: Community Picnic, Swap Meet, Thanksgiving Dinner, Ice Cream Socials, and the like. Also, rides-to-town for those without transportation or who are too feeble to drive can be arranged for folks who need a ride with those who are going to town. If and/or when the economic crisis starts to hit hard here, a community groups structure will already be in place to help those who need it.
And More...
Our daughter, who is learning Japanese and wants to live and work in Japan (we think), has received good news from the Japanese people over the weekend: the old corrupt and economically bankrupt Liberal Democrats have been resoundingly kicked out of power after 54 years of crony corruption. This is a good thing (even if she doesn't go to Japan), because the biggest reason the Japanese economy cratered in the 90s, through the present-day, is because the US, which behind the scenes has run Japan since their unconditional surrender in 1945, had forced the "yen carry trade" on the Tokyo government. Since the "yen carry trade" meant that fiat currencies that wanted to exchange local currencies for dollars but needing the yen to "carry" the exchange (should that have been necessary as the local currency wasn't readily convertible into dollars), would say, exhange it for yen, and then trade yens for dollars. Naturally, this meant that the yen was completely tied to the dollar. This meant that Japan's and the US economy were unalterably linked, so that if one started to tank so would the other. It also meant that if the US economy was forming consumerist "bubbles" and Americans were spending money they didn't have but were spening them on goods made in China (that had been made in Japan for many years), not Japan, then the govt. in Japan would have to inflate their currency to provide the dollars necessary. Or something like that...I'm no economist! In any case, the Democrats who took over, tending to be a bit more leftist than perhaps what we Americans would prefer, having mostly blamed the US-influenced Aso government for the ongoing economic crisis there, have pledged to uncouple the country from US domination and currency ties, at least in the long run. In theory this is supposed to put more workers back to work and help consumer spending. If "more jobs" is in the offing, then perhaps more jobs will be available for folks like our daughter. At least in theory. The downside is, however (according to folks watching events unfold there), that if the Democrats fail to lift Japan out of the economic doldrums, the ultra-nationalists ("kick the 'gaijin' out"!) might take over.
We are "offically on alert" over the garden: the javelinas are back! One got within a couple of yards of the garden with its little snout in the air, probably trying to smell water. Our deer water barrel is empty, and with the porkers around, it's going to stay that way. No sense in attracting the little buggers. One of them almost got one of our kittens. A nice thing about javelinas is that you can smell them a mile away. Our garden, though, with me looking out the window at it every now and then, and secured at the gate, should be safe. We are, of course, on one of their migration routes.
I had actually planned to put this up the last day of August, not the first day of September, and, while things are happening at a breakneck pace in the broader world, things are kinda slow around here. So, unless anything really special happens between now and the weekend, I'll just leave it here at that. Be healthy! You can take better care of yourself than the government can, right?
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