Putin and Xi are suffering from not hearing the truth from those around them.   The world is suffering from a lack of truth getting to these two autocratic rulers.  How does the freedom of speech insure more truth is in circulation.   How do laws that limit the freedom of speech impact our future? 

Elijah, grandson

Called to be great

From beyond the grave of mine

Decades after the blue ink

And biological memory ticks to the beat.

Each story shall be told

After appropriately rewritten and retold

Of times when young

A life lesson did I learn

Or not, or not, more often not learned.

Before I started school

I roamed the desserts around my home

And hung out with new friends like Diaz,

Lopez, Sanchez, and Josea.

One night we sat

Around a fire my friends and I

And some new guys

New big guys, older, wiser

Cooler than my old friends

One of them

Challenged me

As he dropped a steel rod

Into the edge of the fire

Can you remove the rod from the flames?

My friend Vernon warned

Don't do it, the end is black but still plenty hot

And the older kid asked

“Are you afraid?”

“Of course not,” I said

Without losing a beat

And reached in and pulled the rod

From fire to ground.

I heard my skin complain

But in the dark light of the fire

No one saw the pain

Saw the pain register on my face,

I sat there until only Vernon remained

As I ran my hand

Through the cool sand

At the end of the day

Hoping somehow to stop the pain

Screaming I’d been played

And maneuvered against my own hand.

In time, my one friend

As darkness settled in

Talked me into going in

Telling my mom and Aunt Min

My hand was in pain

And I’d been played.

Butter in those days

Was the cure

Or not the more correctly

As I endured without crying

The pain of not being true

And trusting my own way.

Roe

April 2022

Green in My BackYard, Gimby, is the philosophy that we must take the responsibility to execute the transition to Green Technology and the resulting strains on the environment resulting from new raw materials required.  Going green requires a whole new list of raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, magnesium, rare earths, silicon, and copper.  These metals require mining and extensive processing.  

For five decades we have pushed the responsibility of mining and processing these raw materials to other countries where the devastation on the environment was outside of our control.   Often great harm was done to the environment as we pushed technology off of our shores because we did not want the technology in our backyards, NIMBY.    

Now I am advocating we keep the technology from the mine to the manufacturing plant to the sales office in our country and we do it green and clean.  

copper and magnesium smelters, mines, chemical processing, lithium mines, nuclear plants, plutonium plants, steel plants, concrete, silicon electric arc furnaces ... 

How do we build the Green New Deal?   From where does it come?

Do we just order one new Green Deal from China and put it on the boat?

Are we willing to be responsible that the green new deal is built and sourced responsibly?

Love, sweet love is the way the refrain goes.  But what comes before love?  How do we build it?

Grandpa’s Tears

Such a surreal moment

The blood has dried

The smell of gunpowder gone

But his soul lingers in the air

And still, we wait for his voice

Calling out Elijah, I’m home.

I'm the ancient grandpa

Only able to listen, not much more

My own life and my limitations

Brought in clear focus.

No way to take away my daughter’s pain

Or to fill the empty bottle his father left

On the nightstand next to his crib.

No way to tell the story

And change the ending

After the click of the chamber

Before the blast goes viral

And the new reality

Takes the oxygen from the room.

Tomorrow and the day after

And the day after that

The sun will rise and fall

And Elijah’s dad will not return

And take his midnight shift

Of changing diapers and feeding formula

And wiping burps from his own shoulders

Neth baby’s mouth.

How much did the Medicaid blunder

The one that cut off his Lexapro

Shift the balance of control

As he withdrew one week on

How much rests because he saw no future

Without the baby’s mom not wanting to be his wife

And mate forevermore

Just parents together sharing the load

Nothing more, nothing more, nothing more,

Is all he heard.

Not the traditional family

He never had.

Was being sober ten months to the day

Not enough to hold the prize

The prize of a family sitting around the table

Each loving and caring

As they told the tales of the day?

How much did the $4k lien

Against an empty bank account

And bank overdraft fees piling up

Piling up the hopelessness

Put weight on the trigger

As his two friends and baby’s mother

Sitting in the other room

Discussing the mess he had made

Not seal the deal?

Did the world not see

That he got one thing right

When every night

He held his son

Until sleep came and he lay him down?

Did they not see him waiting there

Beside the crib at morning's light

As the sunbeams fell

On the carpet now red?

Grandpa Roe

March 2022.

Someone said to me this week that nuclear weapons were almost as bad as global warming.   You have to be kidding me ... maybe they needed to be sitting under the study desks in grade school when we had nuclear bomb drills.  Yes, the drills were stupid, about as stupid as thinking global warming and nuclear weapons are about the same.  

Have we learned nothing about Putin over the last few decades?  What makes us think we will accept defeat without using all of the cards in his deck?  Why does that not terrify us?

There was some personal tragedy in my world this week.  

Our markets in capitalism are very wise and efficient.   What do we want for climate change?  We want less CO2 in the air, right?  How do you send that message to the market and why should the message be sent?  why should we trust the market?