Antelope Island and Western Soundscapes

Four of us had a wonderful and unexpected trip out to Antelope Island this Saturday with Terry Tempest Williams. We did some bird-watching, marveled at the emptiness, and attempted-some better than others-to follow in Powell's footsteps and do some mapping. I think we all grew a bit more appreciative of the difficulty and intricacy of the work that he and other early topographers completed.

One of the highlights for the trip was being privileged to see the arrival of hundreds of trumpeter swans to the Great Salt Lake for a rest on their yearly migration. It was pretty incredible as they arrived, flock after flock.

I was recently forwarded an email about the Western Soundscapes project being undertaken by the library. They are recording and archiving a collection of sounds unique to the West, recognizing the "vital connection between places and their soundscapes". They currently have recordings representative of more than 70% of western bird species, plus lots of amphibians, mammals, and reptiles. They also have a special project focusing on preserving the sounds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

I've posted the links below of the Western Soundscapes Project, as well as to several of the specific bird species we saw at Antelope Island, although I couldn't find a recording of the chucker or the whistling wind that kept us chilled, and a few others that I particularly enjoyed. The Trumpeter Swan recording has a great bit of the flapping wings that Terry described. It's a fascinating website, and I recommend poking around.

The Western Soundscapes Archive

Trumpeter Swan

Rough-legged Hawk

Northern Pintail

California Gull

Canada Goose

Arctic Fox

ANWR Ice Cracking

Question about new legislation

I noticed that the Utah Senate Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Standing Committee introduced bill H.B 241 which repeals a section Section 73-3-21, "Priorities between appropriators."

That section reads :

Appropriators shall have priority among themselves according to the dates of their respective appropriations, so that each appropriator shall be entitled to receive his whole supply before any subsequent appropriator shall have any right; provided, in times of scarcity, while priority of appropriation shall give the better right as between those using water for the same purpose, the use for domestic purposes, without unnecessary waste, shall have preference over use for all other purposes, and use for agricultural purposes shall have preference over use for any other purpose except domestic use.

This seems like a step in the right direction, but I am pretty clueless when it comes to these matters. Anyone have any insight? Is this a good or a bad thing?

Thanks,

-Jack

Life After Money

The article Jack posted brings up some interesting thoughts, and links nicely with the discussion we started in Tertulia on Thursday. In light of that discussion, here is some food for thought:

The article describes how we have commoditized everything that sustains us and everything that makes life worth living, from food to resources to arts and entertainment. When true financial crisis hits (which the article seems to find inevitable), “the reverse process [will] begin in earnest – [removing] things from the realm of goods and services, and [returning] them to the realm of gifts, reciprocity, self-sufficiency, and community sharing.” The author believes that “people will help each other and real communities will reemerge." But I wonder how realistic that belief is. Will this “gift culture” re-develop? Is it even possible for it to come back? People talk of general communal support during the Depression, but are times too different now? I think Steve’s point that widespread hardship decreases shame, produces a greater sense of communal suffering, and therefore invites more communal sharing is valid, but the situation is quite different here than in was in the 1930s. In this globalized, digitized, privatized, competitive world, have we lost too much of any sense of community for it to rebound in times of need?

At one point, the author states that “anything we do to protect some natural or social resource from conversion into money will both hasten the collapse and mitigate its severity.” Anyone who can make their own clothes, provide their own shelter, grow their own food, not only decreases economic growth by refusing to commoditize those services, but also stands a better chance of surviving when economic collapse does hit. But is it moral to hasten that collapse? Do we have any obligation to shopowners, seamstresses, carpenters, or chefs to share our wealth with them through spending money on their services? Perhaps, in the long term, the collapse of a money-based economy and return to a service-exchange economy would be beneficial for people and the earth, but I don’t think the transition would be easy, and it could disproportionately hurt certain populations. The wall-street gurus who make their money trading stocks would (in a money-less world) be left penniless, and with no skills to barter. As would the accountants, the bank clerks, and the IRS staffers. And there is always the question of how a government would run with no money… Of course, the author is not advocating for a purely barter system, but even minor changes in our established system would have drastic results, results that are incredibly difficult to predict across time and society.

It is an interesting thought experiment, though, to imagine how you would stand if money suddenly ceased to exist. How would you provide for yourself? What skills or gifts could you exchange? What social networks can you count on that are not “vehicles for the conversion of life into money”? Allowing your perspective to shift thinking in terms of what you can give, “what can you contribute to a more beautiful world?”

These are intense questions even outside of a monetary conversation, and ones that I think could provoke some interesting changes if people really examined them. Particularly the idea of contributing to a “more beautiful world.” Even in a money based world in which all things are seen only as dollar signs, if everyone chose to do one thing simply because it made a more beautiful world, I doubt we’d be in quite as many of the predicaments we are now.

(Happily, I think our own little EH community actually has a pretty fair shot of making it if money goes poof: Diane can knit us clothes, Drew can sew us tents and sleeping bags, Ryan can cook, I’ll bake, Jack can keep people from stealing our stuff, and Desiree can prospect for oil and coal. We’re set. )

Interesting Article.

Hello everyone,

I hope I am not stepping on anyone's toes, but I happened upon an interesting article and thought I'd share it with you.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/money_and_crisis_civilization

Enjoy!

-Jack

My paper and a press response

Remember I publish an article on a national scale newspaper about 3 weeks ago. I wrote that paper because a group of lawmakers and developers urge to create a new national park in my country. They think building parks can promote ecotourism and increase employment opportunities. To oppose their argument, I drop my article to reject their argument and also to support local indigenous tribes.

Yesterday one of the lawmakers sent a message through the press. Clearly it is a response to my article and many other tribal voices. She demonises indigenous people as destroyers of nature who only know how to earn money from their mountain farms. On the contrary, non-native people are more ecological because they know the value of the forest and are willing to protect the environment.

To be honest, I feel bad when I know my paper causes such negative response and the lawmaker’s response indeed hurt indigenous people. I also understand it is not correct to plant fruit and vegetables in the mountain areas. But who put those natives in the farm fifty years ago? It is non-natives like me.

Perhaps I should write another paper to remind those lawmakers and developers that “national parks are not national parking lot.” If they care about the land, there are still many things they can contribute.

Painting of a Rice Cake

I ponder the relationship between the real place and its representation. Maybe Master Dogen’s discussion is helpful in making connection of the three.

An ancient Buddha said “A painted rice cake does not satisfy hunger.” Dogen comments:

“There are few who have even seen this ‘painting of a rice cake’ and none of them has thoroughly understood it.”

“The paints for painting rice cake are the same as those used for painting mountains and waters.”

“If you say the painting is not real, then the entire phenomenal universe and the empty sky are nothing but a painting.”

“Since this is so, there is no remedy for satisfying hunger other than a painted rice cake. Without painted hunger you never become a true person.”

Eihei Dogen (A.D. 1200-1253) is a Japanese Zen Buddhist. In many of his teachings and discussions, he is excelled in using non-logical ways of thinking (in other words, to break the fixed logics/theories) to reach enlightenment. In the quoted passages, he demonstrates how phenomenal world and representation are related to each other. As EH community members, are we aware of our hunger?

Too often we are possessed by binary oppositions and our ways of thinking are regulated by theories created by academic disciplines. Sometimes it is inspirational when we read some non-mainstream writings. Moon in a Dewdrop is a good translated work in which a reader can see Dogen’s practice of non-dualist thinking. Western readers might encounter some cultural barrier in the process of reading, but it is fun to try. I recommend the chapter of “Painting of a Rice cake.” This short chapter helps us to locate our positions between physical realities and their representations (for example, natural writings). Believe it or not, I use the key idea of the chapter as a theoretical framework to read Silko’s Ceremony rather than using postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, or other mainstream theories.

It's quite simple, really.

Here's everything there is to know about our Tertulia discussion last Thursday.
(click on photo for full-screen view)