The English system of agriculture, probably the first country to engage in proto-industrial agriculture, was the first to deplete the soil so that inputs were needed to keep producing. First the bones of the victims of the Napoleonic Wars were unearthed and ground up and then, when that source was gone, the guano trade began.

Marx and Engels had the insight to note that when this type of agriculture was employed, soil nutrients, along with the produce, were exported to the cities and other countries. They also noted that the cities inherited the waste which the farmers didn't have to deal with.

Perhaps the world is operating today in Time Further Out:

[video:https://youtu.be/jH0htZ2E-FQ]

it seems, doesn't it?

I equate it to the black baseball players of the 1970's and popular black culture, when teammates and friends would greet each other with a hand slap when another offered his upturned palm. Don't remember when it evolved to a high slap like it is now, maybe sometime in the 90's? Now everybody instinctively knows what it means when we say those things.

Black culture, to me, is the heart and soul of the American experience. When I was a little kid in the 70's black culture was everywhere and dominated, and we kids revered it in many ways. Went hand in hand, for me, with the hippie culture that shaped my worldview to this day. As a musician and passionate fan of all music, there's no doubt that without the influence of the blues and jazz there is no R&R, which is the music that hit me most. George Carlin had a piece called "White Harlem" about growing up uptown NYC. In it he said if you put five white Irish-American guys from with five black guys from Harlem for about a month, the white guys will start talking, walking and standing like their black friends. So much cooler, much less restrained, more open and free, is their culture that it dominates.

We're at the start of a birthday week here in NYC. Mine is today and my son's first birthday is Friday. A few friends and my Boy to the great Thai place we love soon.

It tickles me to be born the same day as Little Richard, of whom, to a bass player I work with says, "there should be a statue of Little Richard in every town across America," for his invaluable contributions to the R&R and pop culture. I don't disagree. Rip up all the goddamn war monuments that mar every town square in even the smallest towns. They're only there, as far as I'm concerned, as reinforcers of the falsehood of American Exceptionalism, and worse, a subliminal message that seeks to cement the populace's fealty to a flag and country no matter who is in charge, and worst of all, warn against anyone thinking of protesting or criticizing "America," the Greatest Country In The World(TM)

Maybe someday will have enough of us who'll want to rip up those military statues everywhere ripped up and replaced by statues to musicians, artists, poets, writers, who have enriched our lives and society as a whole immensely.

And, as ode to another fellow Sagittarian Jim Morrison (12/8), this song was quoted on a placard at Occupy that we would see down there often. It always pumped me up, with the power and energy of the 60's behind it; and seems so apropos again for Standing Rock:

"They got the guns but, we got the numbers."

Thanks for the thread.

Thanks for the work on the open thread!

Good news here in western NC. With the rains we have had recently and hard work by the fire crews, the Pinnacle Mountain fire which burned nearly 11,000 acres is now 100% contained. Unlike some of the other wild fires in the Carolinas and Tennessee, this fire was 100% preventable in that it was caused by a campfire in Table Rock (South Carolina) State Park that was not adequately contained. It certainly was not the worst fire in the region, but it was the closest one to us. Luckily no one was hurt in the Pinnacle Mountain fire.

is too cautious.

The Dems are failing at every turn

I forget, sometimes, that Domenico was born in 1685, even though that was the year he, Bach and Handel were born. So I know it. But I forget it. Domenico didn't really come into his own until 1738 so I associate those 3 with that time frame. Francesco was born in 1666, which seems really long ago! But that makes him only 19 years older than Domenico.

So...why do I think the 1600s (even late 1600s) is long, long ago but the 1700s not so? Maybe because Thomas Jefferson (to name one) was alive and probably aware of Bach et al while those guys were still around and writing new stuff and Jefferson hooks up with the early 1800s and the history of the U.S.

The older I get, the more I see time in lifetime frames. For example, my Mom was born in 1918 and died in 2007, aged 89. Someone who was 80 and who died on the day she was born would have been born in 1829. And another before that would have been born in 1740. As I look out my window at Mt. Tabor, here in Portland, I think that hillside must have looked pretty similar in 1740. The trees might not have been quite as tall. The same type of cloud mist must have covered the very top. That bus, though....that wasn't here. Nor those houses and wires.