When the Times Are Out of Joint

It would be just like Eeyore to bask in the warmth of a gorgeous spring day and keep mumbling over and over, “This isn’t right. No. Not right at all”.

Not that it matters. Everyone else is delighting in the sunshine and the warm air, paying no mind to poor Eeyore glumly mumbling expressions of sadness.

Why this mumbling? Because April 4th should not be 80 degrees in northern New England and the trees should not be swelling with red buds and green shoots while patches of snow still linger in the mountain shadows.

Sure, April in New England is the time for crocus and daffodils, but not flowering trees and swelling buds. That is supposed to be a month off yet. Such verdant ruptures should be in early May not the beginning of April.

Spring should come at a stately pace, revealing each delight in its time. This cancerous profusion of growth takes the poetry out of the season, dumping it into one large tumbling drum of sensations.

So, Eeyore sulks in fear and sadness . Something is deeply wrong when mud season is skipped and the spring bursts force as if pumped from a firehose.

At the rate we are going, the gardens will be past before they are finally turned and the vegetables started. It will soon be too late for lettuce and peas. The heat of mid summer will be here by May, and the harvest will be burnt and shriveled by July. Time is out of joint!

One or two days warmth is fine, a reminder that Spring is a borning. But a week? Not hardly. If we are already wearing shorts at the beginning of April, what will June provide? 100 degrees in the shade?
That’s why Eeyore is afraid. I admit that it might seem churlish of me to even mention such fears. Such wonderful warmth immediately after winter seems a blessing to most.

And, I must admit, that for the moment, this is still a weather event. Yes, dear ones, I know the difference between climate and weather. Yet, there is something wrong here. Deeply wrong.

At least I’m not the only one. Jim Kuntsler seems to be on the same wave length in False Spring. Then he spins off into his rant on suburban sprawl, but does note that we can expect more ticks and pests soon. Everyone else, is blissfully basking in the sunshine. I do so hope they are not surprised.

In this space of growing gloom, I also came across this weeks column by Chris Hedges where he details how the Corptacracy managed the demonization of Ralph Nader. I admit to having felt some guilt for being a Nader partisan in 2000. After reading the article, I felt less guilt.

I admit that Nader may be a bit of an egotistical wanker, but he did have an important message about the corporate takeover. Gore might not have put us in Iraq, but if Barack is any guide, a lot of the bad Bush policies would have come about anyway. Gore was Clinton’s VP after all. When all is said and done, we project entirely too many of our hopes onto the candidates, and take too little responsibility for our own actions.

As a final note, regarding the last post, there was a decent turn out at the first meeting of the Common Security Club, and a bunch more people who want to come to the second.

Something is happening. Mr. Jones just doesn’t know what it is.