Ups and downs . . . The end of fossil fuels, or just our usual short-term thinking?

Oil. Oil. Oil. Have we forgotten how valuable it is? Or are we merely accepting that it will never be as valuable as it once was?

Is this the end of the fossil fuel era?

Perhaps we’re at a tipping point. A point when we still use and depend on fossil fuels, but are moving ever closer to a place where we get our power from so-called clean sources, like solar and wind. It seems to me if we want to increase the use of solar and wind we need to make it ever more cost-effective for homeowners to cover their roofs with solar panels, have grey water systems, water storage and water collection systems, as well as small wind energy systems.

During the recent past hay days of oil and gas, investors boomed then busted even as the world seemed ever more on the edge of major crises in the Middle East and Ukraine and China Sea. But unlike days gone by, energy prices fell, driving virtually all speculators out of the markets and states like North Dakota, which banked heavily on its fracking surge, are left with empty real estate developments, rising unemployment (though still one of the lowest in the U.S.) and tons of busted dreams. Two other energy-heavy states, Louisiana and South Carolina also saw upticks in their unemployment over the past several months, even as most states saw their rates fall.

In the not too distant past, even a hint of global disruption would send oil prices higher and investors running to line their portfolios with gold as well. While gold prices have stayed pretty high (gold was about $350 an ounce in 2001, and is now just over $1,000 an ounce (down from a high of nearly $1,900 in 2011).

For history buffs, gold hit just over $2,000 in 1980.

Ups and downs . . .

A barrel of oil was $150 in 2008, just over $106 in 2013, under $40 earlier this summer and is about $45 a barrel now. Between the highs in 1980 of $115 and, say, 2008 and 20013, oil trended down to a low of $22 in 1998 before starting to rise gain.

Ups and downs.

Few of these things head up or down in a straight line, and today’s investors love playing short-term swings and not long-term holds.

So the energy economy doesn’t look so bright right now. Are we seeing a long-term trend, or are we a bit too focused on the now?

Clearly the game is changing with increased solar and wind use, though water shortages may turn out to be the nation’s biggest natural resource issue. But I’d be willing to bet a nickel that before my kids are close to middle age, they’ll see another major oil crisis, spiking prices and yet another push for more fuel-efficient cars, higher tax incentives for alternate energy construction and maybe even a few long lines at the gas station.

Ups and downs . . .

Too many cooks in the GOP kitchen, but maybe not enough burning the toast for the Dems

While the flock of Republican candidates is proving more is actually not good, the Democrats, once you get past Hillary and Bernie, look like they have a pretty weak bench. Two parties with very different problems. But the same result . . . uninspiring “leadership.”

I guess that’s really what we seem to be missing here . . . a leader. Someone who seems to rise above the maddening crowd. And a maddening crowd it is.

No?

People hate Hillary, don’t trust her, despise her “above it all” sense of entitlement and find her presentations stilted, practiced and robotic.

Bernie is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist with an all-in, in your face narrative that is nothing but straight shooting (as far as we know). But he’ll never attract anyone much to the right of center, though he is drawing big crowds and could be the anti-candidate candidate. He kind of comes across as your crazy Uncle Fred at times. No doubt many in business, the military and Congress are shaking at the thought of Bernie as President. People trust what he says, but we’ll see if his vision catches on . . . He seems to be fading a bit now.

Dr. Ben Carlson has surged ahead of the Trumpster in national polls, in large part, it would seem, because of his quiet demeanor and strong religious faith. But it seems to me the anti-evolution, anti-science candidate will get tripped up when people start to pay attention to what he says and has said. It could be, perhaps, that most voters don’t think government here should be based on Biblical passages and teachings.

Donald Trump himself has slipped a bit, something people said months ago would happen . . . though they thought his campaign would totally collapse . . . months ago. It has done everything except collapse. Trump’s appeal comes from his brash and unfiltered rhetoric, but how long will people follow the, “I’ll hire the best people” or “I’ll make it work” before they see there not much behind the curtain?

Rubio is the young charger and has stifled fellow Floridian Jeb Bush, who just doesn’t have any spark, seems forced and lacking direction and a message. Cruz is a hit with government and Obama haters, but hasn’t shown much of anything other than a willingness to shut down the government. Chris Christie is staking out his positions, but, like Graham, Fiorina and others just can’t get enough traction to move up the popularity ladder. He does seem completely at ease on the stump, though, so that may start to play with voters.

Lastly, John Kasich is a clear, more moderate voice, criticizing some of his GOP opponents for their seemingly shallow and often nonsensical policy statements and trying to sell his experience, but his may be a clear voice drowned out in the hurricane that is the Republican primary race. The primaries will probably shred his chances.

Candidates have gathered together to circumvent their own Republican National Committee over their displeasure with the debates thus far, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see the top four of six candidates work a network deal to hold their own debate. Makes sense . . . there are simply too many candidates on the stage to hold a 2-hour debate and get more than a few minutes from each one.

It’s raucous to be sure.

And Democrats best not get too comfortable with Hillary and Bernie. She’ll be a mostly sitting target when the PACs start their billion-dollar attacks. Bernie may not have the Hillary baggage, but while he’s probably better on his feet than most of the Republicans, it’ll be a question of him getting his message through the maddening GOP noise.

We’re nowhere near those tipping points yet. Once the primaries and caucuses start, the GOP will be whittled down fast . . . no money, no campaign . . . That’ll make it easier for the last candidates standing to be heard . . . for better or worse.

The Republican debates . . . Lots of talking, but little insight

This week’s Republican debate sure was a raucous affair, wasn’t it?

Did you learn anything about any of the candidates and their positions on what you’d consider important issues? Can I pick a few? Immigration? Job growth? Taxes? Foreign policy (let’s say in the Middle East)? Military spending? Foreign trade? Canadian maple syrup?

OK, I was kidding about that last one, but I, for one really didn’t learn much. (Besides, I buy New Hampshire maple syrup.) Clearly a few candidates came to beat up on each other, and pretty much all of them beat up in the CNBC moderators. Granted, the questions really weren’t all that insightful and in all the Republican debates, there seems to be more of an interest in encouraging the candidates to squabble than to debate.

As we know from debate class, the debate structure is generally pretty rigid . . . Usually an opening statement, timed answers and responses and a closing statement. Anyone see anything like that so far?

So let’s look at this week’s cage fight . . .

My take? Cruz and others scored points with their supporters by hammering on the press, always an easy target and one that plays well with Republicans and their backers. Cruz scored the most points.

Rubio proved fairly fast on his feet and managed some style points in his jabs with Job Bush, who looked like someone off the set of the Walking Dead. Incredibly unimpressive. He may be able to manage the job, but it’s starting to look like his downtrend is not merely a blip in the polls.

Trump and Carson say a fair bit, but not much of it makes much sense, though I find the contrast in styles rather amusing. Carson will play well in Iowa. And while the voting is still a ways off, and there will be a million ups, downs, withdrawals and TV appearances until then, trends are starting to emerge.Rubio will be tripped up by his past financial dealings. People will eventually tire of Trumps “I know how to fix it” speeches, though these potential primary voters thus far seem more enamored with style than substance. Bush, unless he can turn his sinking ship around and refloat it, will be an afterthought (He just doesn’t seem to have any campaign personality . . . A Republican Al Gore, perhaps.) Cruz is sharp- tongued, but besides riling up his base, he’s offered nothing on the policy side other than to bash Obama at every turn. (I’ll say it again . . . Obama’s not running again . . . he already won twice.)

Huckabee, Jindal, Santorum and probably Graham are bench warmers now, and only Graham has much of a chance (slim) of getting on the big boy’s field. Kasich is probably in the same boat, but still holds appeal with his background and often moderate views. A moderate probably won’t get through the primaries. Carly Fiorina faded fast after her bump following the two previous debates. Her business background will hold back support for her as she tries to carve out her niche. Chris Christie is gaining a bit of traction, but his record in New Jersey will haunt him. 

The fundamental problem Republicans have now is too big a flock of candidates. With each one trying to make a mark and get their 30-second sound bite, the messages are muddled, often too sharp and too pointed. And lack, therefore, much of a policy slant.

One hopes we get debates that showcase policy, issues, and solutions from the candidates. That’s the only way voters can make at least partially reasoned decisions on who they might support.

My fear is that we’ll continue to get more infighting, less discussion and little insight.

The Tea Party has evolved . . . into a loud-mouthed, do nothing movement. Too bad.

I have to admit, on the face of it, the so-called Tea Party sounded like a good idea. A grass roots movement focused on cutting government overspending and reducing the size and waste of the federal government. Sounds good, right?

After all, if we set aside how we think the government should spend its budget (taxpayer money for the most part), we can get behind the idea that money should be spent efficiently and with care. Obviously we all might think differently about governmental departments and spending, but we’ll talk overall spending for a minute, not political differences.

So the Tea Party was born (more or less). The “Tea Party” is actually not a single entity, but a scattering of like-minded groups that started to pop up shortly after Obama was elected as a growing protest over his spending plans. The Tea Party, therefore, has been largely tagged as a Republican-based group. Never mind the fact that government spending spun wildly out of control with George W. Bush in office, and while Republicans held both the Senate and House. Neither party has shown much overall respect for the idea of holding to a budget, unlike nearly every family in America wrestling with their own budgets.

So the government, many people believe, overspends. (We’ll leave that hanging on its own for now . . . with no political inserts or “this department needs more” or “this department’s budget should be cut.”) If we accept that the government does indeed overspend, is apparently incapable of reigning in costs and expenses, and is blindly oblivious to its rising deficits, then maybe, so the theory went, we need a movement to stop those things.

Therein lies, at least in theory, the seed for the growth of the Tea Party. Even if we skip over growing evidence that the idea of a Tea Party movement was first proposed by the Koch brothers (in 2002) as a way to cut government regulation (therefore business costs) and (paraphrasing) “return the country to its citizens by cutting government and its influence,” the ideal idea seemed like a good one. Sounds good, but the ultimate goals seemed to be, at that point, more about improving their business environment than improving the federal budgeting process.

But when it started to rise, the multi-headed beast that became the Tea Party as we know it today, took on the added weight of pushing a “conservative” social agenda.

That approach grew. Now what once was supposed to be a non-social agenda movement has evolved into what many see as a radical conservative pocket of political discontent, willing to shut down the government over funding Planned Parenthood based on manipulated videos and despite the fact that no investigation has shown any wrong-doing regarding the use of fetal tissue. A political issue . . . not a financial issue. This evolution has in part killed the political discussions, debate and policy creation that marked much of our history.

An ebb and flow, compromise and debate is now yelling, screaming, threatening, posturing, political roadblocks and a stalled political process. On both sides.

It’s a shame, really. Many movements start with a goal in mind, but that can change quickly. Any “let’s cut government over spending” soon becomes let’s cut this and that, but not this. The movement starts to pick and choose what it wants cut . . . let’s cut the EPA or Department of Education, but not the military . . . or, oh, no, we can’t possibly make changes to Social Security or Medicare . . . and on and on. These are fake conservatives . . . thoughtless, uninspired, and under producing.

Throw in a rigid social agenda (which has not a thing to do with government spending) and you have a movement that has evolved into nothing more than a narrow focused entity (or a flock of entities) that creates nothing, has no policy direction or solutions to challenges that most Americans see as important . . . jobs, education, taxes, income, retirement and immigration . . . and now merely shouts demands. 

Too bad. There used to be a working political process. It wasn’t perfect, but it usually worked.

My garden is changing the way I live and how I think of food

Now I know I’ve been flogging the subject of canning on my Facebook page for most of the last month, but I have to tell you it really changed the way I look not only at food, but also gardening.

The container garden on my deck did pretty well this summer, and I’m plotting my strategy for next year . . . going through the seed catalogs and online sites. We’ll limit the varieties next year and focus on the fresh veggies and then the veggies I’ll can.

That means cucumbers for bread and butter pickles, peppers for pepper relish and pepper jelly and tomatoes for fresh salads and then roasting and freezing. My applesauce came from the apples on the tree in my front yards. I finally lost the apple tree in back this summer after years of cracking trunks and branches. The last of the four major trunks gave up the ghost this summer in a storm. But it managed to survive a lot of cold winters.

So the deck garden is done, though I need to pull the remaining evidence of dead plants from many of the containers.

I’ve planted some garlic and will plant some onion sets this week. The garlic and onions went in a raised planting table and a bunch of soft-sided containers that I’ll tuck under the bench on the far end of the deck. Hopefully they’ll winter over and I’ll have onions and garlic by late July.

The process of growing a few vegetables that give me great salads and cooking ingredients has changed the way I look at food, and canning some things at the end of the season stretches that into the months when nothing’s growing out on that snow-covered deck. So when I open a jar of bread and butter pickles I made, or spread some pepper jelly over a block of cream cheese and serve it to visitors, there’s a sense of satisfaction that’s new to me.

Oh, I love cooking for people, so this is an extension of that, really. It’s taking a few little things and adding to that. Let’s not go crazy here . . . my little container garden isn’t grand or cutting edge or even very efficient. I’m working on some of those things.

But watching the bees and the hummingbirds zip from flower to flower, staying just a split second on a squash blossom before moving to the red salvia flowers planted in the container with bush beans and radishes, then darting to a few tomato blossoms before flying off is exciting to watch, and it’s exciting to think about next year and how to make it all better.

As the leaves fall and the weather starts to turn, I’ll glance out onto the deck, most of the containers and beds covered with tarps, and think about how I can set everything up next year to make sure I maximize the space, but also how I’ll make sure to have plenty flowers for the bees and hummingbirds, and plenty of veggies to enjoy through the season and then spend the late summer and early fall carefully filling those little jars with goodies that I’ll enjoy when the snow flies.

Biden's out, but the game remains the same

Joe Biden’s out before he got in, and while that may disappoint some Democrats who had encouraged the vice president to throw his hat into the campaign cage fight, it really won’t change the game much.

Hillary Clinton’s negative ratings are her Achilles' heel . . . People may like the idea of Hillary, and support most of her pretty moderate positions, but there’s a huge swath of voters (Democrats included), who just think she’s a touch too entitled, a touch too methodical, a touch too practiced, a touch too aloof, a touch too predictable, and a touch too untrustworthy. That’s not good, but she’ll carry the Democratic flag into the final rounds with what is now a fractured Republican gaggle of potential presidential hopefuls.

The Republicans will sort it all out, of course, and the race, filled with ever louder shouting, probably lots of personal attacks and dicey political promises.

Republicans will vote for the Republican candidate, and Democrats will vote for the Democratic candidate . . . at least for the most part. The real battle will be for the middle . . . either end of the parties is spoken for, or at least caught in the sticky trap their parties have set for them.

Donald Trump continues his campaign of loud railing against seemingly everything not Trump, while Ben Carson is picking up steam with his quiet demeanor and soft-spoken ramblings. Unfortunately, neither one is qualified to be president. Neither has any idea of working policies and both have presented ideas that may register on the far-right rhetoric radar, but are either undoable or wrong-minded. Read their words and if you can scrape off the hateful stuff (like defunding colleges that are “too political,” or spending a trillion dollars on not only a wall along our border with Mexico but also along the Canadian border), you see there's not much there.

But that, of course, is the appeal. Lots of talk and as little concrete solutions. Trump has been a master, hitting on virtually every hot spot on the scared white middle class list . . . though carefully avoiding specifics. What about income inequality? Health care solutions beyond killing the Affordable Care Act? Tax system reform? Corporate tax loopholes? And on and on . . . nothing really.

Bush, Kasich, Fiorina and the others are trying to build policy statements, but they’re getting drowned out by the Trumpster, and their poll numbers show they aren’t hitting with voters. Voters right now aren’t interested in solutions, they’re interested in venting their frustrations. Pundits have been wrong about Trump for months . . . he hasn’t faded.

One hopes that will change as the primaries begin and voters start calling for substance. Trump and Carson spewing nonsense . . . Hillary’s robotic march to whatever her destiny may be . . . Bernie’s populist groundswell that continues to swell . . . and the rest of the current bench warmers who hopes some of the starters falter so they can get into the game.

There comes a moment when we choose to live . . . to really live

It’s funny what we remember. 

Sometimes it’s little things and sometimes bigger things. But I’m always surprised at the little snippets we retain. I traveled to Hong Kong with my family when I was 12. On the way to the hotel from the airport, a man was hit by a taxi and thrown high in the air. He came down on his knees, hands together and head bowed in prayer when he landed. Our taxi moved on.

We move on, too. If we get stuck in the past, or stuck unable to reconcile our past, then we are forever frozen. We’re creatures that ultimately need forward movement if we are to survive and prosper. Our lives are an ebb and flow, but over time we need that forward movement. If we get stuck for too long, our lives devolve and we begin to lose our perspective not just on the future, which in our mind disappears, but also on the present, where we begin to limit our contacts and exposure, perhaps to limit our vulnerability or because we feel the only way we can survive is to turn into ourselves, a cocoon . . . fooled into thinking we’re warm and protected.

It’s an illusion. We’re weaker alone.

As the things we once held dear and important begin to fall away, like untended plants sitting alone in a corner, we find ourselves less tolerant, shorter with others and more determined insulate ourselves. But after a while we begin to die. The things that made us strong no longer interest us. Our friends have waited patiently for us to return, but we don’t. Sometimes we lash out at them, as if our floundering is their fault. It happens when we can’t see ourselves clearly. At its worst, we slap away the hands of those reaching for us.

Sooner or later those hands recede into the clouds of our isolation.

Isolation, depression, and either we grab for those hands, refocus, and feel the strong grips of those who have helped us and strengthened us before, or we baste in our own misery, thinking it isn’t misery, just a need to be alone. But we’ve stopped moving forward and aren’t making peace with our past, or reconciling our missteps, closing those doors behind us and taking responsibility for ourselves and how we’ve lived. We’re dying and don’t even know it.

There comes a moment . . .

Our past will always be with us. We all wrestle with that. Only when we take the time to slam those doors and move on, though, are we really living. That’s the moment we choose to live.