The Passing Storm, and - The Sea Of Grass

                                        
                                        An original acrylics painting, on stretched canvas
                                        18 X 24", unframed

                                      ( This painting is now on view at the Buttonwood Art Space.)
                                                             ( click on image to enlarge )                                      

     Some viewers of this scene, of rain-soaked, prairie grass-lands, may see it as the 

depiction of clearing skies and brighter days ahead, while others may see it as rough 

weather developing, and dark days ahead.  Perhaps that serves as an appropriate 

metaphor for what is happening in our stormy, political climate these days.  Many of us 

are wishing that the disastrous storms would go away, but we know that they will not 

go peacefully.

     During our last national elections, one nominee proclaimed that he would "drain the

swamp", but as it turned out, he took the swamp with him, to Washington.  We all 

depend on the United States government, to look after the safety and health of all our

citizens, but the man who was chosen to head the Environmental Protection Agency, 

had gone to the capitol, specifically to destroy that agency.  That disgusting man was

finally forced from office, when his habits of using public funds for his personal self-

aggrandizement were revealed, but not before he had done a lot of what he set out

to do.  

     Now we hear that he changed the ruling against the further use of a powerfully 

toxic insecticide, in this country, so that Dow Chemical can now continue to increase 

its billions in profits, by spraying the nations orchards with their poisons.  We can all

agree that all insecticides are poisons, but what we disagree about is the amount of

such poisons we are able to take into our systems every day, without doing any

significant damage to our nervous systems.  The poison in question is the original, 

powerful ingredient in the spray known as Raid.  After that poison was banned 

from home use, because of probable hazard to our health, Dow had to eliminate

that poison from the formula in their home products.  But now they get to continue

spraying the country's orchards with that poison. 

     So now, for the foreseeable future, it seems that we will continue to serve 

our children their fruit with Raid sauce.  

     And the storm clouds will continue to darken each day.  .   

The Tallgrass Indian Summer

                                  An original acrylics painting, on stretched canvas
                                  12 X 24", unframed
                                                                               
                                                           ( click on image to enlarge )

      Most Americans are familiar with the unexpected weather stretches, which are
commonly called Indian summers.  That name generally refers to an unusually warm
period of days, in late autumn, following regular nights of deep freezes, which have frosted
and bleached the landscape, and put the earth to sleep for the winter.  But now that the
global weather system is becoming ever more erratic, and unpredictable, unseasonable,
weather conditions, which we used to think of as rare, are becoming every day events.
We see the results of these, increasingly deadly, weather events in our newspapers and
on television every day now, and many of us experience the traumas first hand.

     Right now, the states along the eastern side of our country, are experiencing record-
breaking, torrential rains and flooding, forcing people to evacuate their homes and
businesses, and causing severe economic damages.  While at the same time, in our
drought-stricken, western states, the record-breaking, uncontrollable, wild fires, are
sweeping over thousands of acres of land, consuming hundreds of homes, as well as
the people who are getting trapped and are unable to escape the intense fury of the
deadly, fire storms.    California used to have a period of the year which they referred
to as the fire season, but global warming has changed that.  Now they say the fire
season is the whole year long.

     The American Plains Indians had a name for the uncontrollable and unstoppable
wild fires, which sometimes swept across the prairies, in great, long waves.   They called it
Red Buffalo, because of the similarities to the uncontrollable and unstoppable nature of
the enormous herds of bison, which could sweep across the land and over everything in
their paths, in a massive tide of horns and hooves.

     The Indians considered themselves to be a part of the earth and everything on it.
For them, the concept of taking ownership of the earth, and then polluting and spoiling it
because of greed, was unthinkable.  It would not have occurred to them, to ruinously
exploit their mother earth for nothing but monetary profit.  But unfortunately, we have not
been such good custodians of the earth.  Every day we are pumping more and more
green-house gasses into our atmosphere.  And now comes word from our administration,
of plans to cut back on the new standards of control for auto-exhaust, air-pollution,
in order to increase car sales.   Perhaps this administration needs a first-hand, up-close-
and-personal encounter with the Red Buffalo.