Groundhog Day

I've got no real reason for posting about Groundhog Day or groundhogs, for that matter, but the local news just made mention of the nonsensical competition between two groundhogs, Punxsutawney Phil and some other one I'd never heard of before. Hell, I can't even recall what name!

I've not been posting much of late as I've been seriously trying to catch up with work I need to do for the festival, a few other websites and my addiction.

I've also been on the road a bit... I went to Midland, Michigan with Julie, a colleague at the MSU Museum to deliver a weaving exhibit to the Midland Center For The Arts. Midland is the home of Dow Chemical and one of the most dioxin-polluted landscapes in the state, if not the country. I wondered, as we crossed the Tittibiwassee River just how much chemistry has been absorbed by the land and subsequently by people who have lived there over the years.

I wonder how many cancer-riddled employees of Dow have supported, and will continue to support their employer's "right" to contaminate everything in sight despite the health risks — all because their jobs depend on a successful Dow Chemical.

If there is a recurring thought in my head, it's about how we have allowed ourselves to become slaves to commerce. It used to be that commerce was an exchange between people within communities — more as a necessity, a life support model for all parties involved. The profit motive, however, has screwed up all that.

Since seeing Ridley Scott's Alien years ago, I have believed the film to be a metaphor for big business and its modus operandi, which is – put quite simply &ndash profit at all costs. Corporations such as Dow are much like the alien creature in that film – they have lives of their own. They must be fed to survive... they feed upon people and the environment. Executives have no other concern beyond the lives of their respective corporations – again, at all cost.

It's sickening. It's sad. It's fatal. And as far as I can see, there's no turning back. We are addicted to this way of life – "it's the economy, stupid!"