Max, this piece is equally painful and essential to read. Thank you for taking the time and bearing the anguish of recounting the history and the current desecration of our kindred beings. Your act of witness summons us to act—to pray with our feet—so that we don’t succumb to despair in the presence of such insidious violence.
This is a fine piece of work Max, tying so many present and past events together. I was aware of the Nippon tank failure, but your writing put a human face on it that can't be found in the MSM. So few of us are aware of the depth of the problems we face, and even the simplest and most obvious solutions evade us. About two miles from where I live stands an enormous vacant lot with signs for commercial development on it on the edge of a poor neighborhood. It has been there for at least five years since I returned to Buffalo and begs to be turned into a green space that would provide shade, a patch of habitat and improve community health, but no, it just stands in a stretch of urban blight. Honestly, I think we're cooked as we watch heat hammer Europe with a monster El Niño just getting under way. Still, I take some solace in being part of a community that recognizes our plight. Thank you for this intense, heartfelt work.
Great piece, Geoffrey. Thank you for sharing that, and for the kind words. Buffalo is facing industrial development threats of all kinds including data center and high-tech fabrication, as you know. I've been connected to a few people there who are opposing that — perhaps already friends of yours. It's going to be a hot summer. And a hot rest of our lives.
Yeah, there are various threats in Rochester, Syracuse and Upstate as well. Buffalo is projected to be around 100° this weekend. It's crazy. This was a city that didn't need AC when I went to college here.
As always Max, great stuff. I witnessed similar insanity at a Proctor and Gamble paper plant in Pennsylvania decades ago where they bring in truckloads of freshly harvested trees to grind up into pulp to make toilet paper. Living trees killed and massive pollution generated just so people can wipe their asses.
Insane, isn't it? When I traveled to the Philippines to work with activists there, I learned that at least some of them see the western way of using toilet paper as incredibly unhygienic. They use water to wash. Some would say it's also wasteful, but grey and black-water can be cycled into gardens and wetlands and cleaned and restored. Forests don't come back so easily. Thank you, John.
I am in tears with the clarity and truth of your post and the last paragraphs. Having lived in Washington state and now in Colorado,and hafvig learned finallly in the past decade about the disgusting history of US govt and settler-invaders enacted upon Indigenous Peoples whose worldview is essential--I am touched. Altho I only read sections, I am grateful for your pulling away of the "veils" of accommodation to modern life and the negative impacts from its industrial base. It is a HUGE job to transform what modern life is based upon and the worldview beneath it...and to engage in genuine responsible relationship with the Earth, all Life and especially with Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge, science and worldview.
We have a lot of work to do, no doubt. Many people still need to learn the history that you've been learning, Bonnie. I'm glad this piece can be helpful. Please share it with anyone you think might benefit from it. Thank you for reading.
Phew, this hits home so much and is so beautifully expressed. Connecting the dots between the land and the stories trying to be told truly feels like the work. I really resonated with the animated way in which you wrote about the river and water in general, as there is such a deeply spiritual and resonant aspect to water that, when we take the time to listen, as you said, we may discover more about ourselves, each other, and the world that could help us move forward in much more restorative ways. This piece really reminded me of an Israel-Palestine artist I adore (Addam Yekutieli) who speaks to / creates installations around the scars of the land and what stories those marks tell if we are to look more closely.
The river is alive. I try to communicate that as best I can. But it's better to be there yourself, or be with your local river. Thank you Natalie. I wasn't familiar with Addam Yekutieli, I'll check out his work.
Usually I "look past." My parents' generation didn't waste ANYthing. That's a start. I look around my home and am appalled at how much unsatisfying stuff I have collected. It owns me now. Bereft we all are, of what matters. Thank you for the call to arms.
Powerful and well done. And you are correct to point out that discovering stories like this, where one spot of land tells such a story, is way too easy. Nearly every acre of this settler colonized land, if you did a deep dive back through time, tells a story like this. Thank you for writing it up.
These stories feel rare, but what's truly rare is only the telling of the history, the contextualizing of reality rather than seeing it only in tiny, disconnected snippets.
Jerry Mander and other critics of television wrote about the danger of "technical events" — jump cuts, special effects, and other edits which create images impossible in nature. This type of imagery is profoundly destabilizing. Those critiques presaged TikTok culture, algorithmic feeds, and AI generated content. We rarely even have the capacity to take in complex, multi-layered reality anymore. Our media and mass culture reflects that.
I'm trying to do a small part of push back. I know you are, too. Thank you for your work, and for reading.
Max, thanks for this heartbreaking article. It dove tailed nicely in Deena Metzger’s article about the need to communicate with wild beings and listen deeply to them.
You're welcome. I know this is your home ecology and the story is particularly meaningful to you. Me as well. The Columbia is the mother of the whole region. And she's being tortured to death.
With regard to our well researched and experiential account I woud like to share my similar historical work, for your further edification, "Unconquering the Last Frontier" https://vimeo.com/1115161548 and "The Village of Tse-Whit-Zen" https://vimeo.com/1083429993?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci. Thank you Max for your fine work.
Walking along the river on Monday was sobering, as it always is to walk in this world with eyes open. Trash everywhere, creosote leaching from railroad ties into the river, industrial ag grains being shipped on traincar after traincar, semis every 10 seconds roaring past, ripped up tires and oil cans and riprap on the shoreline. That river so wants to live and the assault on her is relentless. Thank you for reading, Anna.
Max, this piece is equally painful and essential to read. Thank you for taking the time and bearing the anguish of recounting the history and the current desecration of our kindred beings. Your act of witness summons us to act—to pray with our feet—so that we don’t succumb to despair in the presence of such insidious violence.
We need to do more than walk, but action as prayer is definitely what we need. Thank you Leaf.
This is a fine piece of work Max, tying so many present and past events together. I was aware of the Nippon tank failure, but your writing put a human face on it that can't be found in the MSM. So few of us are aware of the depth of the problems we face, and even the simplest and most obvious solutions evade us. About two miles from where I live stands an enormous vacant lot with signs for commercial development on it on the edge of a poor neighborhood. It has been there for at least five years since I returned to Buffalo and begs to be turned into a green space that would provide shade, a patch of habitat and improve community health, but no, it just stands in a stretch of urban blight. Honestly, I think we're cooked as we watch heat hammer Europe with a monster El Niño just getting under way. Still, I take some solace in being part of a community that recognizes our plight. Thank you for this intense, heartfelt work.
My latest: https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/the-kitchens-on-fire
Great piece, Geoffrey. Thank you for sharing that, and for the kind words. Buffalo is facing industrial development threats of all kinds including data center and high-tech fabrication, as you know. I've been connected to a few people there who are opposing that — perhaps already friends of yours. It's going to be a hot summer. And a hot rest of our lives.
Yeah, there are various threats in Rochester, Syracuse and Upstate as well. Buffalo is projected to be around 100° this weekend. It's crazy. This was a city that didn't need AC when I went to college here.
As always Max, great stuff. I witnessed similar insanity at a Proctor and Gamble paper plant in Pennsylvania decades ago where they bring in truckloads of freshly harvested trees to grind up into pulp to make toilet paper. Living trees killed and massive pollution generated just so people can wipe their asses.
Insane, isn't it? When I traveled to the Philippines to work with activists there, I learned that at least some of them see the western way of using toilet paper as incredibly unhygienic. They use water to wash. Some would say it's also wasteful, but grey and black-water can be cycled into gardens and wetlands and cleaned and restored. Forests don't come back so easily. Thank you, John.
I am in tears with the clarity and truth of your post and the last paragraphs. Having lived in Washington state and now in Colorado,and hafvig learned finallly in the past decade about the disgusting history of US govt and settler-invaders enacted upon Indigenous Peoples whose worldview is essential--I am touched. Altho I only read sections, I am grateful for your pulling away of the "veils" of accommodation to modern life and the negative impacts from its industrial base. It is a HUGE job to transform what modern life is based upon and the worldview beneath it...and to engage in genuine responsible relationship with the Earth, all Life and especially with Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge, science and worldview.
We have a lot of work to do, no doubt. Many people still need to learn the history that you've been learning, Bonnie. I'm glad this piece can be helpful. Please share it with anyone you think might benefit from it. Thank you for reading.
Beautifully woven, and profoundly sad.
Across Gaia, the dead hold thier hands out to the living. There is wisdom in thier touch, if we accept the embrace.
They do, Margi. We just need to listen. Thank you for reading and for your profoundly important work, too.
Phew, this hits home so much and is so beautifully expressed. Connecting the dots between the land and the stories trying to be told truly feels like the work. I really resonated with the animated way in which you wrote about the river and water in general, as there is such a deeply spiritual and resonant aspect to water that, when we take the time to listen, as you said, we may discover more about ourselves, each other, and the world that could help us move forward in much more restorative ways. This piece really reminded me of an Israel-Palestine artist I adore (Addam Yekutieli) who speaks to / creates installations around the scars of the land and what stories those marks tell if we are to look more closely.
The river is alive. I try to communicate that as best I can. But it's better to be there yourself, or be with your local river. Thank you Natalie. I wasn't familiar with Addam Yekutieli, I'll check out his work.
Wow, changed my thinking.
Usually I "look past." My parents' generation didn't waste ANYthing. That's a start. I look around my home and am appalled at how much unsatisfying stuff I have collected. It owns me now. Bereft we all are, of what matters. Thank you for the call to arms.
You're most welcome, D.J. Thank you 🙏🏼
Powerful and well done. And you are correct to point out that discovering stories like this, where one spot of land tells such a story, is way too easy. Nearly every acre of this settler colonized land, if you did a deep dive back through time, tells a story like this. Thank you for writing it up.
These stories feel rare, but what's truly rare is only the telling of the history, the contextualizing of reality rather than seeing it only in tiny, disconnected snippets.
Jerry Mander and other critics of television wrote about the danger of "technical events" — jump cuts, special effects, and other edits which create images impossible in nature. This type of imagery is profoundly destabilizing. Those critiques presaged TikTok culture, algorithmic feeds, and AI generated content. We rarely even have the capacity to take in complex, multi-layered reality anymore. Our media and mass culture reflects that.
I'm trying to do a small part of push back. I know you are, too. Thank you for your work, and for reading.
I woke to this piece this morning...this one hits hard. It'll be with me for a long while.
Me too, Don. Researching and writing it left me speechless many times over the past few weeks.
Max, thanks for this heartbreaking article. It dove tailed nicely in Deena Metzger’s article about the need to communicate with wild beings and listen deeply to them.
You're welcome. I know this is your home ecology and the story is particularly meaningful to you. Me as well. The Columbia is the mother of the whole region. And she's being tortured to death.
Beautifully woven, and profoundly sad.
Across Gaia, the dead hold thier hands out to the living. There is wisdom in thier touch, if we accept the embrace.
With regard to our well researched and experiential account I woud like to share my similar historical work, for your further edification, "Unconquering the Last Frontier" https://vimeo.com/1115161548 and "The Village of Tse-Whit-Zen" https://vimeo.com/1083429993?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci. Thank you Max for your fine work.
Thank you Robert, for your work!
What an incredible analysis of the ongoing trauma and genocide here along the Columbia. Thank you
Walking along the river on Monday was sobering, as it always is to walk in this world with eyes open. Trash everywhere, creosote leaching from railroad ties into the river, industrial ag grains being shipped on traincar after traincar, semis every 10 seconds roaring past, ripped up tires and oil cans and riprap on the shoreline. That river so wants to live and the assault on her is relentless. Thank you for reading, Anna.