Kite, Paul Wolborsky © 1998

This is a story about a Boy and his kite; a worm that wants to fly; a falcon that wants a tail, and an otter that wants a sail.

This story starts with a kite.  It was a dazzling jade diamond with an orange dragon and a long, crimson tail.  The kite flew high in the clear blue sky.  It stalked the sun; it’s tail writing arabic stories in the clouds.  The kite was tied to a knot, a knot tied to a string, a string tied to a little boy named Peter, who loved his kite so.

He loved his kite more then he loved anything else, and everyday, among the clouds, sky, and sun he stood still while his kite pranced, and the world spun, and it was a dance.

“It’s not a diamond, it’s a jade butterfly”, the worm thought, as it chewed the knot, slowly, patiently.  The worm dreamed of flying, and now it was flying, but it wasn’t enough.  For the worm wanted freedom, first from the Earth that has given him life, and now, from the tyranny of a little boy’s finger.  As the world gyrated far below, the worm chewed the knot everyday, until one day-

A strong breeze grabbed hold of the kite, and the worm bit its last strand – freedom!

The kite flew away, and Peter was left holding the string, now the tail of nothing but empty sky.

The kite gambolled, cavorted, roustabouted, tumbled and rumbled in the wind away into the horizon.  But fleet are the feet of a little boy chasing their kites, and Peter flew like the wind… towards a canyon deep and wide.

Freedom is fleeting, the Worm discovered as kite’s red dragon tail fell afoul of a power line.  ”Oh my”, said the Worm.

“Oh my”, said the Boy, who stared in disbelief at his kite so far away.  It fluttered in the wind, a diamond dangle across an unreachable space.  Peter began to cry.

“Oh my”, said the Falcon to his friend and partner in crime, the Otter, from the bottom of the canyon by the icy cold river.

“Oh my, what?”  asks the Otter to his friend with the eyes that witnessed the whole scene.

“I see a boy, and a kite out of reach.  Such a beautiful tail,” said the Falcon, whose own tail was missing a feather.

“And such a lovely sail that kite would make for me,”.said the Otter who wanted to sail to the Sea, but couldn’t swim downstream himself.

“I could fly up there, and bring the kite back for the both of us”, said Falcon.

“I don’t trust you, you’ll take the kite and fly away”, said Otter.

“Then, we’ll go together.”

And Falcon grabbed Otter with his talons.  But they discovered to their dismay that they couldn’t untie the knot.  Only little boys can untie a knot.  But not to fear, there was one just over there.

Falcon spoke.  ”Hi little boy, why do you cry so?”

Peter cried some more, then spoke.. “Mr. Falcon, my kite broke free and now it’s hanging off a wire in midair.  I can’t fly.  I can’t walk on the wire.  I’ll fall into the icy river and I can’t swim.  It’s so close, but it’s gone forever”  And he cried some more.

“Well, I have an idea”, said the Otter.  ”My friend Falcon can fly us to the kite, you can untangle its tail.  If we fall into the water, I can swim and take us to safety.”

Peter wasn’t born yesterday, not even last week.  He asked, ‘Why would you help me?”

Falcon said, “We have one condition, but we won’t tell you until you have freed the kite.”

Peter thought, and looked at the kite he loved so, so out of reach yet becoming tentatively bridged by a desperate hope.  Peter said, “Ok, Mr. Falcon, Mr. Otter, can you help me bring back my kite?”

So, Falcon swept out his mighty wings, grabbed Peter with his mighty talons, while Otter grabbed Peter’s feet.  And so, awkwardly, they flew out across the gulf towards the beckoning Jade diamond dragon and tail that was Peter’s most fervent desire.

Falcon flapped his wings, heart hammering, as he hovered over the kite, and Peter put his hands on the tail…

“Don’t tear the tail”, the Falcon cried.

And Peter touched his kite, the dragon biting his finger.

“Don’t rip the kite”, the Otter cried.

And by the time Peter had loosened the tail and held in his hands his most precious prize, he realized what the Falcon and Otter’s price was.  ”Give me your kite, or I will drop you!”, said Falcon.  ”Give me your kite, or I will let you drown!”, said Otter.

And the boy Peter, who can’t fly and who can’t swim, realized that the only way he could keep his kite was to let it go, for better that his kite be what it was and fly, then to be torn apart.

So, tears in his eyes, Peter threw his kite with a mighty lunge.  The worm that would be a butterfly jumped into Peter’s pocket – it had enough adventure for the day.    Falcon let Peter loose to fly after the kite, but Peter grabbed hold of Falcon’s tail.  And the kite flew away, free of everything but the beckoning sky..

The Falcon, tiring, could no longer fly.  Flapping his mighty wings slower, slower, slower, they all sank into the water.  And Otter dragged them all safely to the shore.

Falcon shook the water from his feathers, bemoaning the loss of a second feather. Otter shook the water from his eyes, bemoaning the loss of the sea so far away.  And Peter?

Peter looked up in the sky, at his kite, now flying free towards the sun, it’s red tail like fire.  It was no longer his kite, it flew for itself.

And worm?  Tired from its adventures, it slept in Peter’s pocket, dreaming of becoming a Butterfly.

Thing, by Paul Wolborsky (c) 2001

This is a story of a thing without a name.  This made Thing very sad, because Thing had nothing to call itself.  Everybody called it Thing, even the thing itself.

But Thing knew it was more than a thing.  It could feel, it could see, if it only had a voice, it could sing! Just imagine, it could be the thing that sings.  But what songs it could sing it could only sing to itself.  Thing had a body – red, neither soft nor hard, six inches long, six inches wide, six inches high except on one side.  It was filled with empty, but never filled completely.

Thing had a job.  Thing had many jobs, but it had never held a job for long.  Currently, Thing was the base of table-leg four, holding up the table.  Thing’s supervisor was Eg, who used to be Leg until a year before when little big Junior, a boy six years old and six feet tall found a rusty jigsaw and cut him in two.

Eg was a nice eg. Thing and Eg creaked and rubbed pleasantly enough during the day, and slept through the night.  Eg used to be a strong leg, one with the others.  Then Eg was a half-leg, and the whole table turned on their crippled brother.  Poor Eg had the burden of the entire table on its aching, shuddering frame.  At night, Eg made a creakly, popply sound.  But Thing didn’t mind, because he hadn’t a friend in the world except Eg, and what’s a little night noise among friends?

So Thing held up Eg who held up the table.  They were both alone in the world except for each other.  The other legs at the table wouldn’t talk to Thing either, because Thing was so clumsy.  Often, Thing would let Eg, the other legs, and the whole table down.  When Junior bumped into him, off he’d wobble, and the whole table would come down.  The scary Old Man would curse Thing for his dereliction, for his clumsiness.  The scary Old Man would yell at Thing, and put Thing down once again under Eg.

“Sorry Eg”, Thing would think tearfully.  Eg always creaked sympathetically.  ”Sorry other legs”, Thing would think.  They never answered back.

Thing would think on its many failures as a thing.  The short career as a door-stop, a pillow, a footrest, a Xmas ornament, a flag, a chair.  Or the disastrous day at the Grocery store as the base of a mound of canned peas.  Thing have been without a home many times, Thing have slept in garbage-cans on many rainy nights.  Thing have never been hugged, or held with joy.  But Thing had been kicked many times.

Thing endured.  It had a single prayer, and it prayed every night.  It was not a request, for Thing held a battered pride.  It was a promise.  ”Somewhere, there is a place for me.”

Thing had a vague memory of birth.  It was a scary memory, so scary, Thing tried to forget it.  Pillows, footrests, bed and trashcan memories covered the disconcerting memories of metal mom.

Metal mom was a cold metal thing.  A big clanking, noisy, steam-driven thing.  Of hissing bellows and pounding presses and black oil and hot and cold.  Hands grabbed it off a conveyor belt and threw it in a big bin with the others.  Thing remembered the others, all of them together in a nursery.  There were so many of them, in different colors and different sizes.  But Thing was different.  He had a short-side.  And it wasn’t long before a pair of hands grabbed it, taking it away from all the rainbow-colored brothers and sisters.

The clankings of metal mom fell behind.  Cold, rough, calloused hands rubbed his skin, and he was tossed into a garbage can.  And it was the beginning of a long, lonesome journey leading to his current job helping Eg hold up the table.

Then, one day, the unthinkable happened.

Junior, who had only bumped into Thing on occasion, finally noticed Thing.

Junior looked at the table, heaping with books and papers with which the scary old man kept his business.  And with an evil grin, bumped into Thing and ran away to hide around the corner.   The table fell over.

The Old man shouted “Wahhh??”.  And yelling, stamping, muttering, gathered his books and papers, righted the table, and cursing, placed Thing back under Eg.

Junior did it again.  And ran, and hid around the corner.

The Old man shouted “Waaaahhh??”  And yelling louder, stamping harder, cursing and groaning evil curses and damnations at Thing, righted the table again.

Junior did it again.  Hard.  And ran away laughing.   This time, however, poor Eg hit the floor very badly, and with a mighty crack, splintered yet again.

The old Man shoulted with a mighty roar, “Aaaaaggggghhhh”.  Frightened, Junior ran out the door, his entire part in this mishap unknown.  The Old Man grabbed the entire table, and threw it on the garbage heap.  The Old Man grabbed Eg, silently bearing its greatest pain, and threw him over the roof of the house across the street.  And yet saved his greatest wrath at the last for Thing.

The Old man kicked thing so hard Thing squeaked.  IT Squeaked!  Then, Thing slammed against the wall, and bounced.  IT bounced!   And it bounced back at the Old Man’s head, knocking him on the ground.  And it flew out the window.  IT flew!!

Thing wasn’t hurt at all, to its surprise.  Its skin, neither soft nor hard, bounced it around as naturally as the sunshine.  And it flew out the window, and proceeded to bounce down the road.

The bouncing Thing scared a horse carrying a cart full of apples.  The apples fell off the wagon, and rolled all over the road in front of a Fireman’s review drilling for a parade.  Fireman’s band and Firemen all fell on the ground, much to the laughter of the little girls on the sidewalk.  The little girls laughed so hard, they all dropped ice-cream cones on their dresses.  One little girl dropped an ice cream cone on a little boy’s foot, and years later, they were married.  Another girl dropped an ice cream cone on the Parson’s foot, and got a lecture on Jezebel and Armageddon.  One little girl ran home in tears, and while the maid cleaned her dress, she put on a ballerina’s tutu for the first time, and later became the greatest dancer in the town.

All the cats, smelling cream, ran to lick the ice cream, and the dogs, smelling the cats, ran after the cats.  The cats ran into the trees.  Dogs licked the faces of the fallen firemen.  And became their faithful friend while the firemen rescued the cats from the trees, getting nothing but teeth and fang for their troubles.

And Thing bounced away.

Down the road.

The road turned.

Thing bounced down the road.

The road crossed over a bridge crossing an icy cold river.

Thing bounced across the bridge.

In a vacant lot, Junior found another use for his evil energy.  Junior had pushed little Tommy peg-leg onto the ground.  And with his hacksaw, he hacked away at Tommy peg-leg’s peg-leg.  Tommy was crying.

Thing saw what evil Junior was doing, and saw Junior’s evil.  Thing learned anger.  Thing hated Junior with all its will.  Thing saw a mound of large Oil-barrels behind Junior.  Thing learned how to fight.  Thing bounced its last few bounces, mightily, with its diminishing motion… and rolled to the pile of Oil-barrels, which fell, covering Junior with crude oil.

Bawling, Junior ran away.  But it was too late.  In his hands he held a prize, Tommy’s severed peg-leg.  Alerted by the noise, Papa ran to the vacant lot, and found Tommy.  Tommy cried on papa’s tendering shoulder, but a little boy can pay little attention to one thing for long, and soon noticed Eg, laying in the dirt.  Eg was splintered, but just about the right size for his peg-leg, so Papa grabbed Eg.  Tommy then noticed Thing, sitting tired, elated, and short on two sides.

“Look Papa.  A ball.  A pretty red ball.  May I keep it?”

“Let’s go home my dear boy.  I’ll fix you a new peg leg with this noble fragment.”

“But Papa, can I keep the ball too?”

“I don’t know my son, it sure looks dented.”

Ball, Thing cried.  My name is BALL!

It had a name.  Now it understood what it was.  But a dented ball could never have a home.

Thing said goodbye to Eg.  It knew Eg will find a happy home.  Oh well, looks like another garbage can for me, it thought.

“Please PAPA?”

“Okay Tommy.  We’ll pump it up when we get home.”  Then, Papa grabbed Ball too.

And Papa, Tommy, little Eg peg-leg, and Ball went home.

When the Iraqi Tribunal finally put Saddam Hussein on trial, he yelled out

“I am the legally-elected President of Iraq, I do not recognize your authority”.

Defiant, and fruitless, for he was tried and hanged for ordering the executions of Shiite men after their failed revolt following the 1st Gulf War.

But he had a point.

It was true in the last millenium, and still true today.  National Sovereignty is the top level of law.  There is no Global authority.  The UN claims certain powers over countries, but it’s power is backed up by economic, and then military cooperation between many countries.

Which is the reason why genocides and world-wide Human Rights violations run rampant throughout the world, and the UN, which was formed to protect Human Rights has been able only to put a few people on trial after the fact.

The fact is, a strongman or party can come to power in a country, and legalize every form of assault on human dignity – genocide, oppression, slavery, rape, torture.  Laws can be amended to turn elections into formalities.  And what can anyone do about it?

If a Country’s misbehavior affects its neighbors, the UN can impose economic sanctions.  If a country invades its neighbors, a group of countries can join together and go to war.  Sanctions and War have been the only way the UN can check rogue nations, and they seldom work.  And if a Rogue country is savvy enough to not offend its neighbors, it can murder, rape, enslave, steal the worldly belongings from any group within its borders unencumbered by world opinion or outrage, if there is even outrage – like Darfur.  What could we do about it?  Sanctions and War.

Darfur.  North Korea Death Camps.  Laws executing gays in Uganda and Rwanda.  Hutus and Tutsis.  Iran’s crackdown on protestors and Nuclear ambitions.  The Taliban and their Nuclear ambitions.  Albinos in the Congo.  Women in the Congo.  Apes in the Congo.  Heck, every living thing in the Congo.  This is a big list.

And Saddam was hung on the basis of a system of laws put into effect after he committed his crimes.

Sanctions and War is not enough.  We need a World Police.  Under their watchful eye, Saddam wouldn’t have been able to violate every tenet of Human dignity so openly, and may have gone on into old age living in spendor like an old Mafiosi, a few bodies buried, but not the wholesale jubilee of evil we watched for 30 years.

But a World Police requires nations to give up a piece of their sovereignty.  Could you imagine our President preparing to give a speech to the Nation about why we invaded Canada when a group of men in suits enter the White House and arrest him?  Would Americans allow that, even if the President invaded because he owned a lumber company and we coveted Canadian trees?

How could that be possible?  The UN sponsored numerous treaties that signatories signed in order to join.  When you join the UN, you, a country, gets the benefit of numerous free programs for education, disease-control, low-cost loans, emergency food, military protection in case your neighbor invades you.  But aside from sanctions and war, you lose no sovereignty.

But it’s on the right track.  A country will give up a little piece of sovereignty to a global body that is useful.  But what would really get buy-in if there is an economic boon.

And what would be an economic boon compelling enough to get Countries to sign an iron-clad treaty to protect the human rights of its inhabitants?

Access to Space.  Space by international treaty is open to all.  But if a global body like the UN gets police power, it can be given the ability to give and take access.  Whether by rocket or Space Elevator.  When Space Elevators are in operation, the Global Body can offer discounts, and all the assistance needed, and berths in orbit, and transit between Elevator and berths.  It could even build a giant version of the ISS for use by countries that cannot afford their own structures in Space.  This would be a tremendously valuable resource, tapping into solar energy, building habitats, production, research and development, mining asteroids.

Space is the key to the beginnings of a Global Gov’t, which has problems of its own.  But Human Rights would not be one of them.

The Descent of Man

The Sun god is a chinese linguini

The sun set in a sea dark like wine,

and in Alexandria it was dinnertime,

Caesar rendered unto Cleopatra

and Cleopatra made linguinis

which made Caesar very fatra.

Said Caesar, I conquer the Land of the Pharaohs

and now I look like Dom Deluise,

and she said oh oh spaghetti-ohs

and added extra cheese.

And Caesar started to make a joke,

like most Romeros, he was a joker,

but before he reached the punchline,

he choked on his wine…

-the grapes of the San Giobisi

is no cure for obesity-

and in the ruckus

Cleopatra asked ‘Was that a cutis interruptus-’

he called her a pain in the asp

in a voice full of rasp

and she said ‘don’t cleopatronize me!

I’m not just a little girl I’m a Ptolemy

in fact I’m not just any Ptolemy

nor just another pretty Ptolemy

I’m the epitome of a Ptolemy!’

and Caesar said, you just tole me

you’re 4 times a Ptolemy with a P and a T,

Cleopatra said, 4 times make a fork,

and now it’s time to eat.

Caesar asked, I don’t want to seem a fooldle

but what exactly is a noodle?

And Cleopatra said, “Well, we have a god named Ra-”

“Ra?”

“Sis boom bah, the god of the sun…”

“Ra, Sun, honey-bun?”

“Ra is the top god, and we say-”

“Amen-”

“hotep we pray and when

“we pray, we pray

“to the top Ra, Amen!”

“Since I am the top Roman,

Can I hold a candle to the top Raman?”

“Baby,” she growled, “you got an empire

that sets my heart on fire”

so Cleopatra and Caesar knew the noodle

and the sun set on an empire

and Ptolemy gave birth to ptitaly

now known as Italy

and whenever you shall roam

have some Ravioli,

or any other noodle,

while in Rome, do as the Ramen doodle.

Farming was poor family business, but its economies of scale made it good corporate business.  That is why companies like Monsanta, Con-Agra, Cargill have become big business and why in the name of big business  they are replacing our biological diversity with cubed tomatoes that never rot, has no taste, and no nutritional value. Big Ag designed genetically-engineered Round-Up weedkiller-resistent soybean to benefit its bottom line – if the result loses nutritional value and carries toxic hitchhikers, that’s not their problem.   Remember what the Produce Section USED TO BE?  Now it is a heartbreaking wasteland of overpriced, uniform, sterile, factory-made, genetically-engineered, cubed product.  An insulting knock-off of the miracle of nature, keeping us one-step removed from our relationship to the very planet our collectively-ripening rumps squat on.

Capitalism has a fatal flaw, and Big Agribusiness is no exception – in the battle between stockholder and consumer, the stockholder always win.  Problem is, the stockholder is also a consumer.  Big Agribusiness is full of people just like us, sharing our concerns, but collectively will starve and poison us in the name of Stock Prices and Book Value.  This is unsustainable, bad juju for the human race.

But the backlash is happening.  The hottest trend in the Food business is USDA Organic, local-grown & Kosher/Talal foods.  I’d like to say the public is wise to Big Agribusiness and taking back the farm, but the honest truth is: we don’t care so much about weedkiller-resistent soybeans, we’re tired of tasteless cube tomatoes.

The original tomato came close to extinction.  In the 90’s, Farmers planted old tomato seeds, and what came off the vine was very strange fruit, misshapen, any color but candy-apple red, and utterly delicious.  Heirloom tomatoes hit the market and I think started the Organic Farming/Local farming revolution.

Now everywhere, family farms are sprouting.  Applying for USDA Organic certification not just for the money, but as a core value.  Apples the like never seen before from Mendocino County.  Lamb from Petaluma.  Free-range Chicken.  Free-range Turkey.  Lettuce, Onions, Chile peppers.  Marin County Cheese.  Organic Juices.  Whole Foods carry organic.  Trader Joes carry organic.  Now even Safeway and Lucky’s are carrying Organic.  Prices are going down.  We’re rediscovering variety, taste, and our Mother planet’s fecund beauty.  Who were at the forefront of this movement?  Chefs.  People who cook and feed people for a  living and like having honest-to-god ingredients to cook with.

Rick Bayless, Chef/Owner of Frontera Grill is in the forefront with the Frontera Farmers Foundation.  When he opened Frontera Grill in Chicago in the late 80’s, there were no farmer’s market, and he was laughed at by Wholesalers.  Now there are.  Add to that the Noveau Cuisine movement started by Alice Waters, Chef/owner of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, and a rash of top-rated Restaurants in Napa Valley – Mustard’s Grill, the French Laundry, Ubuntu.  Oregon, Washington, even the Hudson Valley?

Family farms enhance our quality of life.  Sustainable, higher-quality, wholesome, nutritious food.  Unique, innovative, delicious.  And profitable.  Taking the harder road of Organic certification, building your market, experimenting with variations and techniques, the family farmer has to be learned and tech-savvy.  And watchful.  This ain’t your daddy’s farm, it’s a new beast.  What’s the next step?

Full Circle Farm

Peterson Middle School, student run, grown organic farm with funding by Silicon Valley companies like Cisco.  Next article.

This blog makes the point that a Sustainable world will be composed of autonomous, smaller communities that band together – yet with technology still operates under more global governance.  You get the best of big and small government.  We still have a lot to learn before reaching this point, and creating a more sustainable, robust society, and small communities are doing the learning.

Governance – Placing the needs of the community beyond the needs of the few. Example: Do you put a stoplight in front of a Shopping Center? How do you balance the economic needs of a few with the good of the many – put a stoplight in front of the shopping center that pumps money and jobs into the community. Don’t if it doesn’t. Strong Committee, Weak Mayor – In smaller communities, the Mayor is the contact, the face, even the heart, but not the brains and the pocket of the community. The Mayor does what they do best, the Board what they do best.

Self-containment – A community that provides 75% of the services it needs because it recruits/attracts talents and skills needed. Wouldn’t it be great if a City posts on Craigslist an ad for a Web developer, housing provided?

Local Networks – A community setting up trade with neighboring communities to provide both protection, economic stimulus, talent, and to pool buying power. Counties sort of do this, but communities can show a bottoms-up approach rather than top-down.

Environmentally sustainable local transit, local economies – If you work locally, you don’t need to drive everyday to and from work. Possible even in larger communities with a good local transit system, as long as you keep commute time to less than 45 minutes each way.

The Marketplace – Malls replaced community with commerce, but killed a human need. Notice Malls try to look like communities, with street-signs and lampposts, but it’s phony, sterile. Malls are struggling now, and downtowns coming back to life. Shopping where you know everybody and where everybody knows you is the essence of a local economy, and strengthens Communal independence.

But make no mistake, that’s slavery.  The company doesn’t have to pay benefits, and my friend works full-time for half-pay, not including $160/month for train and bus fare.

I have no quarrel against part-time work.  In fact,  I’m looking for permanent part-time work.  Because it pays the bills, and leaves me enough of the week left over to use flexibly – doing more work, opting for higher-paying, less-stable gigs that may lead me to full-time employment.  I win, and the company wins, only if part-time means 8×3 or 25 hour fixed price projects.

The problem are 4×5 or 5×5 jobs.  The time it takes to get ready for work, to commute to work, then commute home can easily add 10 or more hours a week, and that’s not counting wasted time from missed connections and traffic congestion.  Part-time work alone is not enough for most people to survive on, yet having to do everything times five leaves you too tired, too strapped, and without enough contiguous time to do substantive work.  And of course, it’s bad for the environment to be travelling when you could be at home.

Companies don’t do this to be mean, or in a bid to use slave labor.  Most companies hire part-time assistants, organizers, coordinators as a resource for their full-time staff, who also work 5-days a week.   But for the most part, it’s just the reality of life that a company’s employees are higher on the food chain than part-time, temporary staff.  This isn’t a call on companies to mend their ways.  This is directed at you, the part-time worker to negotiate.

First off, cut one day off the week.  Instead of working 4 hours, 5 days  week, try for 4, or even 3 longer days, which approaches the 8 hours/day overtime limit in California.  If the company still needs coverage over 5 days, they can hire an additional part-timer to fill out the rest of the week.  You can even cut your total hours if your company’s budget cannot cope.  But also remember, by not paying benefits, companies are already saving a lot of money hiring you on a part-time basis.  This is for your benefit, but if you work it right, it benefits the company too.  Make a business case out of it, and try for a win-win situation.  This is sustainable living, this is innovative living, this is humane living, and it’s a living.

Just remember, you may be a bottom feeder, but you’re not a slave.  You have just as much right to walk away as a company does to cut you.  If you have skills, you are entitled to make a living and keep that roof over your family’s head while you save up for walls and floor too.

A simple question for you.  What happens when Mass Transit becomes the shortest route between point A to B?  BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), a line of electric trains nearly girdling the Bay gets to find out.  The 77 year old Bay Bridge has closed down indefinitely, with catastrophic consequences.  Ever since Loma Prieta’s famous span collapse, it’s been vulnerable.  They started building a new bridge next to it 2 years ago, but that project was put on hold due to the financial crisis.

Now, the unthinkable happened, the Bay Bridge crumbled and it’s CATASTROPHIC.  The Bay Bridge connects San Francisco with the East Bay (Oakland, Berkeley) and… Northern California and… any of a dozen or so states feeding into I-80 (I-80 ends at the SF end of the Bay Bridge).

If you want to drive from Oakland/Berkeley to San Francisco, you’d either have to take the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge to the Golden Gate, or the San Mateo Bridge, both a 30-40 mile detour on already heavily-trafficed routes.

The only direct connection now is BART, which goes under the bay from Alameda to San Francisco.  It’s SHOWTIME!  And BART, the Mass Transit alternative, gets to find out what it’s like being the main artery.

It’s happened before.  77 years ago.  Which is why they built the bridge in the first place.  Now the question is… can BART take the load, and will drivers like it so much that when the bridge reopens they’ll still take BART?   I predict some, but not the majority.

I dream of a mass transit paradise.  This won’t be it.  But if this experience causes 50% of local drivers to switch to BART every time they want to cross that part of the Bay and leave their cars behind, Urban planners and CALTRANS would be forced for the first time to give Mass Transit equal footing to the automobile.

After feeling outrage, anger, then a soul-sucking depression.  It was easy to decide to lock all the perpetrators in prison and let them rot.  But wisdom dictated that beyond an incendiary reaction, there is a question that must be asked and a mystery to solve.

How did this happen?

This was evil, and everybody involved were people who knew this was wrong.  But it seems unlikely that everybody who participated were Rapists only waiting for the opportunity to commit a gang rape to present itself.  To say the Richmond High Student Body is full of rapists is to say Richmond is full of rapists, or the San Francisco Bay metropolitan area is full of rapist.  Our area has a low violence and crime rate, it is prosperous, well-educated.  Richmond has a history of violence, but it’s not exactly gangland, and these students were not committing a gang wilding.  So, looking at evil dispassionately, I can say these Students were not rapists before that night.  I’ll go further to say these students knew that Rape was bad, that it was an act of violence.  I may even say these were not lost souls on the way to a life of crime and violence, but instead were looking forward to graduating, going to college, working for a living, raising families.

Or like all of us, knowing that there was a wide, well-marked path that is a normal life waiting for us, with a line off to the side that you cross when you hijack a car, go on a mass shooting spree, commit rape and murder, kidnap and molest children or for that matter, step in front of a speeding bus.  We all know that we can do these things in an instance, but most of us just don’t – it’s not an act of willpower to not commit a murder, murder is just an unthinkable act beyond which lays a ruined, wasted life in prison or death row, or losing everything you own and cherish, including a future.

But these kids crossed that threshold.  How did they go from being just a bunch of kids to committing a brutal gang rape nearly murdering a young girl while everybody cheered on?  These are the kind of horrified questions people asked, and never got an answer.  Some people just leave is as a tragic mystery of life.

But it’s no mystery.  Every act of evil has a seed.  The Evil Seed is a single person who plants a suggestion in other people’s heads, and then proceed to build a case for them on to commit an act of evil.  These people are called Sociopaths, and has some very infamous players – Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic, Omar Al-Bashir, the Teenager in Florida who lit another teenager on fire, Jim Jones, Jihadist Suicide bomb-handlers, William Luther Pierce (Turner Diaries).

Sociopaths either use their wiles to trap people into their control, to con or kill people.  Or, when they encounter people who are vulnerable to suggestion, they play God.  By persuading people who are not evil into committing evil.  And success validate their Godhood.  Even better when they can fade into the darkness and walk away, never suspected at being part of the crime.

These sociopaths are not common, but not rare.  And people who can be gulled into acts of evil are plentiful – practically all of you, and I have a potential to do evil.  Sometimes, a sociopath gets a partner, someone who may be a sociopath or psychopath, or very disturbed, or a chronic follower – sometimes that person is a leader of a gang, who takes action and even credit for evil just so they can still appear to be the leader of that gang.  Sometimes, in a cult, they create a physical space isolating people from the world around them, and eroding the sense of right and wrong they learned in that world.

Sometimes, it’s not charisma, but blackmail, that spurs people to cross the line.  Getting someone to commit to some petty theft for example, a Sociopath can threaten to send evidence to the police, exacting an even greater crime as the price for keeping a secret.  Sometimes, a really inspired Sociopath will use groupthink to get people to cross the threshold within the space of 2-3 hours, escalating event after event.

I think the Richmond PD needs to ask the question, who planted the original idea in these youths’ heads.  Then they need to recognize that person is a Sociopath/psychopath.  A dozen lives are ruined, there’s no going back on that now, teens who woke up the next morning realizing to their horror that it’s no dream – they wake up and realize their future is devoid of freedom, hope, opportunity.  They’ve entered hell on earth, and they deserve it.

And you have to wonder…   is there someone lurking out there who will be able to do the same to you?  And do you have the mental ability to avoid that fate?

The skill you need to cultivate now, and most of you hadn’t, is the ability to know when you are being manipulated.  This and other forms of critical thinking are important, as you navigate a life with hidden dangers.  It is also part of Sustainable living, to protect your planet, you must be able to protect your soul.