Back in town, back online

Considering how long it's been since our last post, it would not be surprising if anyone who might have checked this space from time to time had given up hope of anything new. We've been entirely immersed in home improvement activities--sprucing up the 1968 upstairs addition with new carpet, doors, paint, etc--and then visiting and traveling with close friends from abroad, rediscovering well-loved areas of the Southwest as well as Santa Barbara County by showing it to visitors. Besides the simultaneous relaxation and stimulation of travel and conversation, we are convinced anew that we live in a beautiful, well-protected portion of a great country.

As we drove through vast portions of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, transitioning gradually from Sonoran desert surrounding the marvel of Frank Lloyd Wright's compound at Taliesin West to the Alpine slopes of the lower Rockies and then back to our own South Coast, we were always reminded that this land is worth fighting for. On numerous occasions along our route through the homeland of the Navajo and Hopi, we were reminded of how the Indians have fought for the preservation of their land and way of life for nearly 400 years--alas, with only marginal success.

And walking the Carpinteria Bluffs and Elwood Mesa with our friends, or watching them photograph whales in the channel, seals at the Carpinteria rookery, or Monarch butterflies in Goleta we were could see evidence of how much we, too, have had to fight and negotiate to maintain the wonders of our environment--fortunately with remarkable success at the local level.

Didn't watch a second of the inauguration, confirmation hearings, or the State of the Union, but we can still read the papers and get pissed enough without the living image of the vandals who've taken over in Washington. Now, with the initial presentation of the Bushie budget, we can see exactly where things stand.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell used to talk about how you can always tell what is important to a culture by looking for the tallest building in town; Is it the hotel? The museum? The mostly vacant but impressive office tower? The church spire? Depends on whether you're visiting New York City or Salt Lake City. But the same judgment can be rendered as you look at the state and federal budgets.

On our trek through the Southwest we drove over 2600 miles in a rented SUV on absolutely perfect interstate highways and bought gasoline throughout--including California--at under $2.00 per gallon. Our European friends, used to paying three times that, were absolutely gob-smacked! This is clearly what Americans value above all--humongous cars, well-maintained highways, and cheap gas. We've got it all and are willing to pay handsomely for it, both from our pocketbooks and from our environment.

Yet our healthcare system seems permanently broken; we can't afford to rebuild our decaying urban neighborhoods, and aren't willing to pay what it takes for quality education. And now we're turning against the concept of a guaranteed subsistence for retired workers. The Bush budget proposal "reads like a hit list against almost every social program paid for by US taxpayers," says the independent radio news program Democracy Now! The administration wants to slash 150 government programs, with one third of those programs involving education.

Bush's plan would reduce aid to cities by a third, drop health insurance for thousands of low-income families, reduce veterans' medical benefits, cut funding for police and sheriffs, wipe out child care subsidies for 300,000 families, trim funding for clean water and soil conservation and close down dozens of programs for preschool children and at-risk youth. Also on the chopping block is the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency--to the tune of $450 million. Our compassionately conservative president also proposes cutting $100 million from a Bureau of Indian Affairs program that helps build schools, as well as cutting $200 million for home-heating aid for the poor.

This is all necessary, of course, to protect and carve in stone the embarrassingly huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and naturally to pack more sand down that five-sided rat hole called the Pentagon as we pursue a pointless war in Iraq.

This can be opposed, though. We don't have to lie down and roll over. I'm reminded of the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680, when the long-suffering native inhabitants of the Southwest rose up against their pious Spanish rulers, slit their throats and dumped the bodies off cliffs and into ravines. Homeland security indeed!