At last! Mood Elevation On Tap At Home

Would you like a little estrogen with your prozac tea today?

One of the difficulties of even trying to think about the ‘environment’ is that there is such an abundance of information, whether it is "news" items or data, and ALL of it is inter-related. In very short order, all of it becomes overwhelming. To demonstrate and explain just how even a single bit or byte of information is related to the web of nature and human endeavors could easily be the basis for a book. But most of the time "environmental information" is presented as just another electronic 3 by 5 card to be filed away under the category of miscellaneous, “Oh-isn’t-that-interesting?” environmental bad news. For most of us in the USofA, the tidal wave of "environmental news" has become frightening or scary, even though it's usually, distant --- something that's happening 'over there' in some benighted smudge of a place on the planet. As a result, most of us opt out of paying any attention at all unless it’s affecting us personally in some way. Well, HANG in there and LISTEN up Bubby, ' cause this time it is!

Our national media have become part of the corporate wallpaper; they are masterful enablers of ignorance and denial. Usually for them, it’s the old “Out of sight = out of mind” way of dealing with unpleasantness. Or to put it another way: Just stick your head up your ass and pray. Instead of talking about issues of real importance, the media shower us with ‘reality TV’ shows, endless celebrations of celebrity dysfunctions, Presidential ‘horse races’ and the like. Then they proceed to build a wall of noisy advertising using shrill shills to shield from any sounds of dissent or complaint. Their ‘programming is also deliberately designed to keep us from learning what’s happening in the rest of the planet, where everyone else lives in a very different reality. The entire process creates a perfect world of ‘no context.’ (That last is a phrase from one of my favorite books: “In The Context of No Context”, by George Trow.) Hang in there; I am getting to the point soon.

Every now and then, however, some actual content-with-unavoidable-and-undeniable-context leaks through or under the wall. An example of this is the news today that the drinking water in many of our cities, if not most when all of the facts are finally in, are laced with drugs. Here’s the lead paragraph from a story ‘printed’ on-line via Comcast: “A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.” And you thought it was just that exposing your children to sex on TV would rot their brains? I don’t think we have heard the last of this particular story; at least I hope not. Yet, with all of the breast-beating and wailing going on about the price of gasoline, or the peregrinations of Eliot Spitzer's slong, or Hillary's whining self-importance, this poignantly, and literally, affecting story may just sink beneath the waves, so to speak.

The upshot or bottom line of the story is this: Apparently many millions of us may have a convenient phramo-bar right there at home at our finger tips. Who needs a complicated prescription drug plan? Our kitchen faucet, it seems, may be a cornucopia of contemporary convenience: Meds at a twist of the tap. You just didn't know it, because up until now they didn't think to tell you. Of course they haven't quite learned how to adjust the mix of meds so there's still something of a jumble, a bit of a soup of unknown ingredients pouring into your glass, but trust them, they'll get it right one of these days. All those folks juicing up with steroids and viagra, and zoning out with demerol are sharing their goodies with you, excreting it into the water supply so you can sample it as well. Talk about community generosity! Wow, I'm impressed. Now if they can just come up with a dial on the faucet so we can adjust the ingredients to our own particular needs..... I know, I'm such a dreamer. In the meantime, I think I'll just have another Scotch, neat; no ice and no water, thanks.

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As noted previously in a Feb. 28 post, I have begun over-writing (a kind of garrulous re-writing) a book entitled “One day In The Life Of The Earth”, by Andrew Bailey. It was published in 1983, to absolutely no fan-fare whatsoever. Though it may turn out to be a fruitless endeavor, equally ignored and passed over, it is providing me with an intelligent and sensible outline on which to hang my ideas and concerns. I am trying to craft a framework, or whatever it may be called, for looking at the world that will help to make contextual sense of all of it. I am hoping it will provide an easily understandable and useful way of seeing oneself, (myself), ourselves and our favorite others, in relationship to the planet that is both practical and spiritual. A sort of “Think Globally, Perceive Locally and Act accordingly”. Or as Bill McKibbon would have it: “Act neighborly”.

Another entry in this endeavor later today, if all goes according to plan. But it probably won't.