The planet on which we all live sufferes from a dearth of Earth. Planets have always connoted to me sterile bodies., whereas Earth has always meant to me a planet, the only planet in our solar system, that was fecund. This, I believe, has been true for millennia, but of late, things have changed for the worse, and drastistically. Over recent decades, the number of species on Earth that has become extinct has increasesd astronomically. Veritable seas of plastic within oceans have swelled. Catastrophic climate change knows no political boundardies. This and the imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust are existential threats to all living creations on Earth. Perhaps I should haved titled this piece THE DEATH OF EARTH instead of the THE DEARTH OF EARTH.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

If every human being knew her/his locus of worth and embraced it, no one would ever feel abashed.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

More than 80% of human beings unconconsciously are afraid to learn about their inner-seleves, and therefore don't.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Too many of us prize the place over the person.

When I dream, I dream of hobos--6 to 8 of them--huddled around a make-shift fire next to the railroad tracks eating warmed cans of pork and beans. We chat, tell stories and jokes, and sometimes break into laughter.  Maybe Woody Guthrie is among us.

Other times, I dream of the **** death camps, not an easy, not an enjoyable, thing to do. But that did happen, and not by economic circumstance. And even if fleetingly, they were together. I think that's what draws me to them.

Sometimes I dream of the Lakota Ogala Sioux before Wounded Knee put an end to them and their way of life. I see Crazy Horse, one of my few heroes, always self-effacing, and as true as the arrow he just shot as he was to his word.

And when Martin Lither King, Jr was murdered on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee by a single rifle bullet to his head, 4 April 1968, I dream of standing over him with others, crying.

The ugliest place I've ever seen is Versailles. Opulence on top of opulence on top of even more opulemce. Made me want to throw up.

Often, maybe too often, we prize the place over the person.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

First, there was Al Gore's prescient film, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Then there were scientific warnings from around the globe. Then there were scientific facts. Now the most respected scientists on Earth give us 10-12 years. Either humanity does the near-impossible--correct all these wanton, ecological errors or all life on Earth perishes.

So what is the metaphor? Ecology is but a metaphor for all other existential threats facing Earth. Imminent nuclear holocaust, for example.

What we don't yet see is something John Donne saw several centuries ago:  No man is an island. I would add, No island is an island. We are all connected. We are all one. We shall either sink as one, or die as one. There are now over 200 nations on Earth now, but these political boundaries are illusory. The waves and winds that become hurricanes, the air that we all breathe--all are oblivious to "borders." And now the pandemic.

What one human being does deleteriously inelectually affects the rest of us, just as John Donne portended. Why not reverse this catastrophic pattern? Why not turn it around 180 degrees? Why not create Peace on Earth forever instead of War on Earth forever?

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Where is Voltaire now that we need him?

The Age of Enlightenment, also know as the Age of Reason, was a full-blown burgeoning of reason in Europe in the 17th and 18th centurys.

By 2020, we have just begun what I call The Age Of Unenlightenment, or Worse, an immmoral retrograde not seen since the days of Corligula, a dystopian era ushered into our global society by a sodden  driver named **** Trump who crashes through his pretentious entrance of **** Trump Tower on 5th Avenue. Now that myrmydon Cohen has just been released from prison because of the pandemic threat, let him clean up the mess in the morning.

In the meantime, the November elections loom. Costa Rica or New Zeland? With the Russians contriving and the Repuplications suppressing, **** Trump could get illegallally re-elected. If that were to happen, I would not wish to spend another nanosecond in this corrupt, criminal country. New Zealand or Costa Rica?

The Worse, you ask? Take your pick. Catastrophic climate change or nuclear holocaust. At least the results of either will not be rigged.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

Love comes at us at different times, from different directions. In a parking lot of a hospital. Two cars parked side by side. A woman and a man  both entering their cars at the same time. The man says, "You are beautiful." The woman walks around the end of her car, smiling. The man says " I said that to you because it is true." "I'm in my early 40s," she says. The man replies, " When a woman is beautiful, which you are, age flies out the window." The woman smiles even more. Then man gets into his car and drives away. The woman will never forget this exchange.

Copyright Tod Howard Hawks