I had dinner with a friend recently, a really bright woman who had a room
mate who is a Canadian singer/song writer who is a friend of Joni's. About
six years ago, my friend went to a dinner with the Canadian and his friend,
Joni Mitchell, and her husband at the time, Larry Klein.
My friend is a very bright, educated woman. At the time, she and her
current husband had only recently met. He was very impressed that on their
second date they were having dinner with Joni Mitchell. My friend thought
Joni looked great and had very nice skin. Her perception of Joni was that
she was shy. My friend was intimidated by Joni because she's a great artist.
The Canadian singer later said that Joni was intimidated by my friend
because of her education.
As for Joni's politics, I remember seeing a painting she had donated in '72
to the McGovern campaign. It comes as no surprise to the people on this list
that she has always been terribly concerned with the environment. She has
dual Canadian and American citizenship, so I am sure that if she voted it was
for either Gore or Nader.
My chief concern in this entire election has been the environment as even
personal rights are secondary when it comes to the degradation of our one and
only Earth. Texas is the most polluted state in the union, and people in
places like Odessa have the highest blood and lung cancer rates in the
country, a result of Bush's laxing pollution regulations. Putting oilmen
like Bush and Cheney in the White House is like putting wolves in charge of
the flock. Bush has made it clear that he wants to violate the Alaskan
wilderness to pump oil, and he shows no interest in bio-mass or alternative
fuels which will diminish the profits of the oil corporations.
I have a lot of appreciation for the Libertarians, but environmental plunder
is an example of where government needs to intervene. As a people, our
government can't just allow anyone to create and conduct businesses without
regards to the consequences of the damages they inflict. I have always
personally felt that the embrace of automobile culture by the United States
is a collective insanity -- as a result we all breathe polluted air that
gives lung cancer to thousands of nonsmokers and our one and only earth is
carved up with ugly roads. Thousands and thousands of us die each year in
automobile accidents. The car has been a bad thing for us all. I hate how
much money I have to spend on mine in order to be an economically viable
employee in Los Angeles. If we are honest with ourselves, the real reason
we drive cars is because of the status they lend to us, just as medieval
nobles all had to ride on horses, and never walk like the "pedestrians."
respectfully,
Clark
NP: Vertical Horizon
