mjh’s blog — The catalyst almost killed us

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In the long run, Americans favor more freedom, not less. Denying rights

goes against America’s self-image. Even many conservatives are leery of amending the Constitution. Prohibition was the last time we

amended the Constitution to restrict rights and freedom; you know how well that turned out.

There is absolutely no doubt that one

day, gays and lesbians will be free to have all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. No doubt.

Before that day comes,

there will be a battle with people who have no hesitation in denying countless Americans a whole host of rights. Ironically, these people

call themselves conservatives, though they are all about radical change. This is just one bar in the cage they are building around

America. They are our jihadists, our taliban, fanatic followers of the one true word of god (as they see it). Not content to live and let

live, not able to do unto others as they would have done onto them, the Radical Right will destroy this village to save it. We cannot

allow that.

After they attempt a constitutional amendment to dictate who has the state’s blessing in declaring their love, the

Radical Right will move on to an amendment denying women control over their own bodies and their families. Then, an amendment to allow

Arnold Schwartzeneggar to become president (after Jeb Bush, perhaps).

We must stop this. But, if we fail, the pendulum will swing

and some of these changes will be undone (some things are already ruined forever). That’s assuming we haven’t all become slack-jawed

bible thumping reality TV watching apathetic illiterates in the meantime. Who benefits from ignorance? Who benefits from apathy or

despair? Who benefits from passivity? The Powers-that-be. Shake off your stupor and fight back!

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mjh’s blog —

Expanding Freedom

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Happy Earth Day, Everyone!

Some say the “Environmental Movement” has itself become a corporation indistinguishable from its foes. Some say that “the people” no longer trust “the movement.” Some even say the movement is irrelevant because everyone is an environmentalist now. Yeah, that last one is especially funny.

Whatever bits of truth float in those views, all of us are coming to realize how fucked up the World has made the Earth. We see the climate change, and the severity of destruction it spawns. We see the diseases that may very well be Earth’s antibodies against humans. We see the end of the Era of Fossil Fuels and the shorter-term sputters of that dying system. We have a good sense of what is wrong, how we play into that, and how we are going to be part of the change. We all *know* that in a single lifetime everything will change dramatically. Our house is on fire. mjh

mjh’s blog — I’m Recycling on Earth Day

Earth Day 2002

I celebrated Earth Day idling in line at the drive-up window. As I burned my part of the world’s resources, I waited for chemical-laden beef raised on clear-cut forest land, served with genetically modified potatoes grown in the desert, watered by rapidly melting polar icecaps. On the radio, the president called for arctic drilling. On the TV, the vice-president called for nuclear power plants. On my cell phone, I called for replacement batteries for my laptop, my digital camera, my CD player, my pacemaker. On my palm-pilot, I wrote “need to get away.” I used a search engine to look for a campground with hook-ups, preferably near a convenience store. mjh

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I first posted this 5 months ago, but it is again timely. I’m even more sanguine about time

change is Spring, when I finally find it easier to get out of bed and my hibernation is over. mjh

I like the biannual change of the clocks for reasons beyond my contrarian nature. For one thing, I like

change and the gentle disruption of the day-to-day. Change is not always good, but it is inevitable; best to be ready to find the good in

it.

In particular, I like the way the time change underscores the arbitrary nature of our measurement of time. Is it really 11am

now or is it 10am or 12pm? Why do we care? Clocks rule modern life — there are 4 or more in this one room. Hours, minutes, seconds —

nanoseconds! If only we paid such attention to equinoxes and solstices or sat patiently through more sunrises and settings. What

title="Moon Phases" href="http://www.calculatorcat.com/moon_phases/phasenow.php">phase of the moon is it? It is yet another matter

that separates the World from the Earth and, in the process, makes us look and feel rather silly.

That silliness is elevated by

the sing-song, childish mnemonics we depend upon: is it fall forward or spring back? Notice how we need endless reminders the day before

and again the day after in the paper and on the TV. Imagine if we had such a thoroughly redundant system reminding us that lifestyle

choices affect longevity (see it twice in the paper, hear it repeatedly on the TV — every six months — maybe that would sink in).

Of late, as a sign of the times, my thoughts have turned darker. Perhaps it is an experiment in obedience and acceptance of arbitrary

authority (do opponents of Big Government refuse to change their clocks?). You will set your clock as we tell you to, and you will not

question that. Spring Forward! Burn your books! Fall Backwards! Betray your neighbors! It is always time to be a good citizen.

class="sig">mjh

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Chance caused me to re-read the

following. I wrote this about 9 months ago after the Albuquerque Journal had an article on the AOL Call Center here bringing in a

motivational speaker as a “reward” for meeting goals. What a lovely way to say thank you. (sarcasm)

class="sig">mjh

From the Desk of the CEO of AOL

On behalf of myself, the

board, and our shareholders, I feel required to thank you for your recent efforts in winning the call center competition. We considered

giving you a raise (kidding) or a one-time bonus, but concluded it would be more fiscally responsible (ie, cheaper and more deductible)

to pay $10,000 to a football player to try to inspire you into keeping up the drop-dead pace at which you have been working. Thanks to

you forgoing bathroom breaks, I will get $10 million in bonuses this year. I can’t thank you enough. You are vitally important to our

company, even though you could be replaced in an instant by someone making less money.

Next month we will be cutting your medical

benefits again, but you will be glad to know we’re paying Dr Phil $100,000 to inspire you to accept your fate. When we abruptly close

your call center to ship the jobs to a place where your hourly pay is considered good monthly pay, we will try to get you a free AOL CD

as a token of our real appreciation. Now, back to work, lazy slaves! You can read on your own damn time.

Originally

posted March 5, 2005 02:27 PM

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Greetings from Richmond, Virginia, the Capital of the Confederacy. My name is Jefferson Davis and I am here to accept my mandate — the people have spoken! It was never red versus blue states; it was always Blue versus Gray.

Brothers and Sisters, it has taken nearly 150 years to win our war against Northern Aggression. A lot of Yankee blood has watered our gardens. Now, we are triumphant. We have beaten the Beast and we can savor the bankrupting of the immoral Federacy. No longer do we have to accept their dominance — they are toast, my friends, relegated to the ashheap of history.

Now, the North must acknowledge our great culture. Our music, our stories, our family values, our moral fabric so stained by northern filth. Now, we can restore our economic greatness again — cheap labor makes men rich! Guns keep us free! Obedience to God benefits the State!

Many of you want to call the liberal North a bunch of fools, but that’s not our way. We are as genteel as we are resolute. We will treat the treacherous North with greater civility than they ever treated us. They don’t know what it is like to be subjugated, defeated, humiliated, bled. To be forced to accept a culture that has no moral compass, that puts science above God, justice above wealth, equality above property rights. They don’t know what it is like to have your entire society crushed, even burned to the ground. But we know. It has made our blood boil for 150 years, that northern arrogance, that Federal invasion. Now we will dismantle the Federal government and undo all the wickedness forced on us in the Sixties.

Let us not revel in vengeance against those who took everything from us. Instead, let us work toward solidifying our power for generations to come. Then the North, the Democrats, the Liberals, the Queers will all recognize they are nothing but a minority to be tolerated — to a point. Do not push us beyond that point, as you have so many times in the past. Do not dare think this great nation is yours any longer. It is ours, we’ve won it, we’ve earned it, we’ve paid dearly for it. We own it all. Now we are masters again. God bless US. mjh

Read mjh’s blog — Left Undone

The Internet is so vast it now reaches across time. Here is a message from 2010: …

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After I heard that George Duhbya Bush was coming to Albuquerque again, I scoured the news for information. I even checked the White House website. All I could find was he would be here ”mid-morning” on Friday, speaking in front of his usual hand-picked crowd. Supposedly, his speech would not be a campaign speech (therefore, you and I paid for it), but a ”policy” speech on homeownership. No one mentioned where he would speak.

Thursday, I wrote two reporters asking if they knew the time or place of his visit. One said ”no,” the other said ”we’re not supposed to say,” explaining that in these times one can’t be too careful. Too careful that someone will protest the president. Bush is a coward and is spreading his fear among the people.

Thursday afternoon, I climbed on my roof and spread two tarps. On one, I painted a big white W with a red circle and slash (No Duhbya). On the other, I painted ”Dump Bush.” I also painted the w-slash on two trash bags.

Friday morning, I filled some helium balloons and stuffed them in the trash bag and attached others to a line attached to the bag. Up on the roof, I let my protest go, up into the air. I’m beginning to realize that helium is weak and balloons troublesome, especially in any breeze (and this is spring in New Mexico, where breeze is an understatement). Eventually, a few neighbors came out and called their support to me. A few people stared as they drove by.

Meanwhile, the news covered the president’s arrival and mentioned a few protestors in a ”free speech zone.” Welcome to what used to be America. mjh

See www.RooftopRevolt.com. Join in!

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href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/11/opinion/11WED4.html?th">This Is Your Proselytizer Speaking

Flight 34 suddenly sounded

as if the stick was in the hands of Elmer Gantry, not Chuck Yeager. The American Airlines pilot, Roger Findiesen, suggested that

Christian passengers skip the movie and instead attest to their faith by raising their hands in the air. The master of the ship then

invited an interfaith dialogue between the Christians and the nonbelievers strapped in their seats.

These

days most people are looking overseas and worrying about Muslims. Not me, because I’m worried about the religious fanatics right here at

home. I don’t care if you believe in god or even if you believe the Bible is literally the word of god. Believe whatever you like.

Unfortunately, in the last 20 years, religious fanatics have come to believe their faith entitles them — even requires them — to

interfere in everyone else’s life. Isn’t it enough that we non-believers are going to hell (you say)? Must we have hell-on-earth in the

company of bible thumpers, the painfully self-righteous and sanctimonious? These Christian Radicals are on jihad, claiming the one true

way and prepared to kill for their faith (something I can’t see Jesus approving).

When Chairman Mao lived, millions carried his

Little Red Book. There wasn’t the tiniest doubt that it contained all the Truth and Wisdom in the world. I know devout bible-literalists

will blanch at the comparison. But, consider, the followers of Mao would be just as shocked. So it is with fanatics.

Increasingly,

we are being assaulted and threatened by these Born-again Believers who believe American is ”a Christian nation.” Some of their

thoughtless intrusions are almost laughable, but something worse is in the works. Every day, the most radical and dangerously devout,

including the President, are working to limit our freedom: our freedom to believe what we want to believe (including nothing); our

freedom to choose, not just whether to have children but who to love and marry; our freedom from state-sponsored religion (a form of

dictatorship); our freedom to protest.

Am I repudiating all who sincerely believe in god? No. By all means, live your life in

loving compassion and peace; if it takes a god to inspire (or threaten) you, so be it. Believe what you will, share your beliefs with

your congregation. Work to change the world, through your own good example. But remember, most of us have different views and all of us

want freedom from oppression, no matter how well intended. mjh

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Though you didn’t see it on the news and read almost nothing about it in print, there were protesters in Roswell confronting George Bush. We were there.

My friend Jas. proposed the trip to Roswell. He could not stand Bush bringing his fear & lies to New Mexico without any opposition. Bush, in a move taken from Cheney’s agenda, spoke to a stacked audience of military cadets bused into one of the most conservative towns in New Mexico — no worries about dissent or open opposition (isn’t the bully brave).

So, we took to the road in my camper the night before. The drive down was surreal as we passed through dense fog, past trees white with frost. A Trupact container drove by, loaded with radioactive waste (our own Pete Domenici, who introduced the president the next day, supports weaker containers, fewer inspections, more shipments).

We arrived outside of Roswell after midnight and camped off a dirt road. We snuggled in sleeping bags and set the alarm.

The next morning, we drove into town. The main street was barricaded a few blocks either side of the convention center, but the side streets were open. We picked a spot a block east of the convention center, not far from the media vehicles and just below the sightline of a half a dozen snipers. Out of the camper, we pulled Jas’ creation: a Mylar banner suspended from helium balloons painted with the message “Send Bush to Mars.” We had considered stronger messages but we both believe that humor will strip the tyrant of his veneer. It was a timely message fitting Roswell, New Mexico.

As the balloons warmed, the banner lifted slowly and began to drift to the south, paralleling the main drag. We know some people on the street saw it. There can be no doubt the snipers saw it as did the helicopter pilot. We took a couple of pictures and started to leave town.

Ah, but we couldn’t just go, we had to turn back and relish sticking our thumb in Bush’s eye. We watched the banner at about sniper height drift a couple of blocks before catching on a tree. There it hung, the balloons tugging, sparkling in the sunlight.

What happened next was more serendipitous.

As we headed out of town, we stopped at the UFO Museum. All through the museum, Bush’s speech blared, much like small-town Germany 65 years ago. It was ironic to wander through a ‘museum’ that documents people’s gullibility and mistrust of government while listening to Bush. In the gift shop, a patron spoke of ”incredible things spoken of by credible people” — what, ”aliens” or ”the war on terrorism”?

It turns out we were in the museum exactly the right amount of time. As we headed out 380, we stopped at a gas station. While we gassed up, a state trooper blocked the intersection and people began to line up along what proved to be the president’s route to the airport. We never could have planned to be sitting so close. What to do? Too big a gesture, too early, would bring the cops or Bush loyalists down on us. If only we had another banner — though the materials were close at hand (and, ironically, we ended up having more time than we realized). The best I could do was draw a small sign: Patriot Act is UnAmerican.

So, after braying to the young men he will send off to die, after phoning the fanatic anti-choice crowd who powers him, after laughing with the restaurant workers and patrons he is robbing, POTUS drove past hundreds of waving loyalists and probably never saw the man in the yellow shirt holding his sign high with a tear in his eye.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you speak out, that you protest the direction this president is dragging the entire world. No one can stop him but all of us. Get active! mjh

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Here is my

proposal for artwork in the Uptown Area.

On the south side of the Louisiana overpass, let’s erect a larger than life Coronado en

la Entrada crossing the Rio Grande (represented by the concrete ditch down the middle of I-40). Enjoy the irony that Coronado will never

reach his mall.

Before you get out your hacksaws, wait! Look to the North. Here we will place some representation of the Pueblo

peoples (no, not a slot machine). I leave it to the many fine Native American artists in New Mexico to decide what is fitting. I do

recommend the Marriott acquire a Chacoan facade, like the Homeland Court downtown (Bless the Homeland!).

This memorial will

perpetually represent the gulf between the First Immigrants, for even the Indians came from somewhere else — though I have no cognitive

dissonance from the notion that they came from someplace else AND have always been here (I feel that way myself).

What about the

Anglos (not to mention Blacks, Asians, everyone else — which is par for the course)? We already have our memorial in the two malls,

where we seek new bargains and homogeneity. I can’t wait until they build more stores between the two malls, finally putting to use that

idle open space! [Updated 2006: they're here!]

Most fitting to

our age would be large digital screens which would perpetually flash advertisements and security alerts. We’ll take as our inspiration

the rape of the National Mall in DC by NFL and Pepsi, featuring Brittany Spears, stripped of all decency (huh?). Maybe these screens

could occasionally show photos of the Sandias, which soon will not be visible from Uptown. mjh

The

Background

ABQjournal: Locals Split on Uptown Art Plan By Lloyd Jojola, AbqJournal.com

City residents had a chance to weigh in on

the proposed design concept for two sculptures to be installed as part of the planned Louisiana Boulevard and Interstate 40 interchange

reconstruction project.
The contemporary, cone-shaped public art pieces are influenced by desert geographical forms. The 36-feet-

tall-by-64-feet-wide cone shapes would, among other things, allow rain to be captured and used to water the landscape.

title="Proposed Uptown Art Criticized" href="http://www.abqjournal.com/news/metro/117596metro12-04-03.htm">ABQjournal: Bowled Under:

Proposed Uptown Art Criticized By Lloyd Jojola, AbqJournal.com

Everyone’s an art critic. The design for two Uptown sculptures

costing about $300,000 and resembling “giant coffee filters” or “urns” has already received some colorful criticism, and it has yet to be

the focal point of a public meeting.

href="http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/119740opinion12-10-03.htm">ABQjournal: Letters to the Editor

Louisiana

‘Cones’ Don’t Fit In

The reason the proposed volcanoes stand out is because they are modernist kitsch— statements about

the ideal, circa 1945. I don’t care if the project makes an arcane reference to the idea of “Uptown,” so long as it incorporates an

appropriate degree of complexity. At present moment, it strikes me as a “one liner” that has a $300,000 price tag.
JOSHUA ARNOLD

Tijeras

Arthur Alpert’s take on this:

href="http://www.mjhinton.net/aa/000056.htm">Alpert’s Truth: I Become a Know-Nothing

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