Life is worth living even without our piles of stuff

I was walking my pooch on the Bobolink trail. I met a woman there who was using plastic for a poop bag. I gave her a compostable one and said it is much better for the planet and reduces methane production. She said, “Thanks for the bag, but I am a climate scientist and the poop will produce methane no matter what.” I said, “You are a climate expert, are you afraid?” and she said, “I am terrified.” And so we toodle on with our lives, driving around, using gas mowers, flying airplanes, overheating and over-cooling our homes, heating up the planet. In short, we, like Nero, fiddle as Rome burns.

There is a ray of hope, perhaps. PBS interviewed Katalin Karikó, the scientist who won the Nobel this year. She was a child in a war-torn impoverished post-WWII Hungary. She looks back on that as a fine time. She played with friends and enjoyed the food that there was, showing that piles of money and stuff are not necessary to live a satisfying life. PBS also did a story on human well-being. A Harvard professor of psychology did an extensive study and came to the conclusion that well-being comes from helping others, (there is a measurable positive brain event when you do so) and from being in a functional community, such as the community in which the impoverished Hungarian woman grew up.

So perhaps, once the earth has reduced our numbers and our piles of stuff, we will still be able to find a life still very worth living. One can hope.

— Don Mayer, Boulder

The Sand Creek Massacre and the conflict in Gaza

Zionists, that is Jews who support the current colonization of Palestine, claim correctly that Jews used to own Palestine. As recounted in the Bible, the Israelis invaded Palestine from Egypt, massacred the indigenous tribes living there and controlled the land until conquered and subsequently exiled by the Romans in 70 CE. Like many other displaced minorities, the Jews scattered to multiple lands but managed to maintain their identity. Those who lived in Europe were repeatedly massacred and discriminated against by the Roman Catholics who dominated Europe.

With the Protestant Reformation, the number of religious groups subject to discrimination in Europe exploded. To the relief of European rulers, some of these discriminated groups volunteered to leave Europe to settle and colonize the newly discovered land. European rulers were delighted to be rid of them. Convinced of their mandate from God, settler-colonists murdered men, women and children of the native populations of America and stole their land. When the natives fought back they were called savages and were largely exterminated. This is called settler colonial displacement, which was justified by the American concept of Manifest Destiny.

Now another European discriminated minority, the Jews, are, in my opinion, embarked on a settler colonial displacement of the indigenous population of Palestine. Again, this colonization was supported by the rulers in Europe, especially, Great Britain. As was true of the American colonists, the Zionists claim that God wants them to have this Palestinian land. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were driven into exile while their land was stolen. Strangely, while we here in Colorado lament the Sand Creek Massacre perpetrated by our ancestors against the native Arapahoe women and children, we watch without moral outrage as the same phenomena occurs in Gaza.

— Charles F. Clark, Boulder