Gerald Maclennon's Blog - Posts Tagged "earth"
Greta Thunberg, Environmentalist
One of my 2nd cousins is an Environmental Officer in the Swedish Army. I asked him, "What is your take on Greta Thunberg?" / His reply was, "A great human in a small body."
Indeed I do have to admire 16-year-old Greta's ability to overcome her Asperger's Syndrome (a form of autism) and speak out on issues that should matter to everyone but are just not in the limelight due to corporations that care about nothing else but their bottom line.
When my ad agency lost it's most lucrative client, I was laid-off at age 55. In applying for other creative positions, I repeatedly ran into age discrimination. Eventually out of desperation I signed on to work for Walmart and did so for 20 months. That was the worst job of my life (and I'd had about 40 up to that time).
Firsthand did I experience the heartlessness of their business philosophy. It's all about money and maintaining that bottom line: Profit is first and foremost... and human beings are just labor commodities to use and abuse and toss in the trash when they begin to stumble from overexertion.
And woe be to any employee who submits a workman's injury claim because Walmart enlists an army of shyster lawyers primed to fight to the death any injury claim no matter how small and if that doesn't work, to publicly shame the employee into dropping the claim because management will say, "This employee and his claim will reduce the amount given to all employees as a Christmas bonus." I know that's true because it happened to me.
Walmart's example has been repeatedly applauded by Forbes's Fortune 500 businesses and in the past two decades has become the model on which virtually all corporations operate.
And do they care about the earth and its environment? O' hell, no! Especially if it takes anything away from that insidious bottom line. Ergo, the Earth needs more Greta Thunberg's because the fat cats in charge don't give a flying f**k. They'll go down with the ship as long as the ship shows a good profit up to that point.
Indeed I do have to admire 16-year-old Greta's ability to overcome her Asperger's Syndrome (a form of autism) and speak out on issues that should matter to everyone but are just not in the limelight due to corporations that care about nothing else but their bottom line.
When my ad agency lost it's most lucrative client, I was laid-off at age 55. In applying for other creative positions, I repeatedly ran into age discrimination. Eventually out of desperation I signed on to work for Walmart and did so for 20 months. That was the worst job of my life (and I'd had about 40 up to that time).
Firsthand did I experience the heartlessness of their business philosophy. It's all about money and maintaining that bottom line: Profit is first and foremost... and human beings are just labor commodities to use and abuse and toss in the trash when they begin to stumble from overexertion.
And woe be to any employee who submits a workman's injury claim because Walmart enlists an army of shyster lawyers primed to fight to the death any injury claim no matter how small and if that doesn't work, to publicly shame the employee into dropping the claim because management will say, "This employee and his claim will reduce the amount given to all employees as a Christmas bonus." I know that's true because it happened to me.
Walmart's example has been repeatedly applauded by Forbes's Fortune 500 businesses and in the past two decades has become the model on which virtually all corporations operate.
And do they care about the earth and its environment? O' hell, no! Especially if it takes anything away from that insidious bottom line. Ergo, the Earth needs more Greta Thunberg's because the fat cats in charge don't give a flying f**k. They'll go down with the ship as long as the ship shows a good profit up to that point.
Delirium
Wrestling with Angels: An Anthology of Prose & Poetry
1951. Little Gerald was 4 years old and sick as a dog. I don't remember which childhood disease I had contracted, but it pretty much sapped all of my energy. My mother had made a bed for me in the living room of our Red Oak, Iowa apartment and was doing everything in her power to relieve the symptoms of the illness. I was sweating profusely. My pajamas were soaked. My body was so hot that normal air chilled my skin and made me shiver. It was summer but I had a blanket covering me. Mom would place a thermometer in my mouth at least once every hour.
The last thing I remember before entering delirium was Mom crying out to Dad, "Good Lord, Neal! His fever is up to 105 degrees! Call the doctor again!"
Deep within that delirium, I had a terrifying vision. I saw multiplication of things, both large and small... and some microscopic. A little boy doesn't have words to describe such visions, but I watched it as if it was a motion picture being projected on the screen of my mind.
Today, I can describe it as something similar to an amoeba reproducing by dividing into two, and then those two dividing into four. In turn, those 4 amoeba became 8. You get the idea. The division continued with increasing speed 8 to 16, 16 to 32, 32 to 64. Soon there were hundreds, then thousands, then millions, then billions. The image in my mind was filled to overflowing with this exponentially growing mass. I couldn't explain it to Mom or Dad. I kept the horrifying vision in the archives of my mind until I reached adulthood.
Then, one day I knew. We are destroying our own species and taking along thousands of others as we upset the balance of nature, the cycles of life, all that the Creator had made perfect in the beginning.
In my delirium I saw the shape of things to come. In the year 1950 the world’s population was approximately 2.5 billion human beings. As I write this in 2009, the population has leaped to around 6 billion. We are the delirium. The nightmare is us.
How long can earth's natural resources sustain out-of-control breeders reproducing like bunnies just to prove their virility. Men such as these strain our planet’s carrying capacity – taking, consuming but rarely giving anything of value back. Instead they loot us all of a future. And then, will the plagues and pandemics begin.
Referring to the human race, Earth scientist Dr. Louis Turi stated the dilemma quite well, “Mother Earth does not need us. When she is ready to heal herself, she will do so, even if it means the extinction of man.”
I know. That's not very encouraging.
Gerald Logan-MacLennon, 62, Rio Grande Valley, Texas 2009
1951. Little Gerald was 4 years old and sick as a dog. I don't remember which childhood disease I had contracted, but it pretty much sapped all of my energy. My mother had made a bed for me in the living room of our Red Oak, Iowa apartment and was doing everything in her power to relieve the symptoms of the illness. I was sweating profusely. My pajamas were soaked. My body was so hot that normal air chilled my skin and made me shiver. It was summer but I had a blanket covering me. Mom would place a thermometer in my mouth at least once every hour.
The last thing I remember before entering delirium was Mom crying out to Dad, "Good Lord, Neal! His fever is up to 105 degrees! Call the doctor again!"
Deep within that delirium, I had a terrifying vision. I saw multiplication of things, both large and small... and some microscopic. A little boy doesn't have words to describe such visions, but I watched it as if it was a motion picture being projected on the screen of my mind.
Today, I can describe it as something similar to an amoeba reproducing by dividing into two, and then those two dividing into four. In turn, those 4 amoeba became 8. You get the idea. The division continued with increasing speed 8 to 16, 16 to 32, 32 to 64. Soon there were hundreds, then thousands, then millions, then billions. The image in my mind was filled to overflowing with this exponentially growing mass. I couldn't explain it to Mom or Dad. I kept the horrifying vision in the archives of my mind until I reached adulthood.
Then, one day I knew. We are destroying our own species and taking along thousands of others as we upset the balance of nature, the cycles of life, all that the Creator had made perfect in the beginning.
In my delirium I saw the shape of things to come. In the year 1950 the world’s population was approximately 2.5 billion human beings. As I write this in 2009, the population has leaped to around 6 billion. We are the delirium. The nightmare is us.
How long can earth's natural resources sustain out-of-control breeders reproducing like bunnies just to prove their virility. Men such as these strain our planet’s carrying capacity – taking, consuming but rarely giving anything of value back. Instead they loot us all of a future. And then, will the plagues and pandemics begin.
Referring to the human race, Earth scientist Dr. Louis Turi stated the dilemma quite well, “Mother Earth does not need us. When she is ready to heal herself, she will do so, even if it means the extinction of man.”
I know. That's not very encouraging.
Gerald Logan-MacLennon, 62, Rio Grande Valley, Texas 2009
