Ever notice that there are a lot of people in society who do not act in their own behalf, even when confronted with evidence that it is imperative they do so?

We all sort of understand the alcoholic or drug addict who has an underlying character or mental defect that makes them need a crutch to get through life. I’ve known alcoholics and addicts who gave up substance abuse only to delve headlong into fervent religious beliefs and the sudden need to convert others to what they have “discovered.” Seems obvious to me they’ve traded in one crutch for another, albeit a less destructive one.

The abused housewife is a tougher one to understand. Why don’t they just get out of their situation? And if they do get away from one abuser, why do some of them seek out another abusing man? Some women seem to have a homing device for abusive men. Low self esteem? Victim of childhood abuse that makes them seek out another abuser? Or just scrambled eggs for brains?

Harder still to understand are those people who are at serious risk of illness or death from the way they eat but won’t change what they eat? I’ve come upon many of these people. Heck, America is full of them, judging from what the news media has labeled America’s obesity epidemic.

A couple of years ago I was enrolled in a supervised exercise program following heart surgery. Many people in the program had undergone bypass surgery like me, but few had bothered to read anything about the eating habits that may have led to their clogged arteries. Many were way overweight but weren’t particularly interested in dieting or exercising. How come?

Most people seem willing to give up smoking once they understand its hazards. Why not unhealthy foods? Is it because there’s a social stigma attached to smoking, namely, smoking implies you must be really stupid to go in the face of such overwhelming evidence that it will some day kill you. Is that it? Smokers quit because there’s a social stigma attached to it, not because it might kill them?

I like to act on newfound knowledge. It makes me feel pretty smart. I used to smoke, but read the evidence it would cause cancer so gave it up. I like to drink but limited my intake based on the evidence that too much led to serious social and health problems. I like to eat, but adapted my intake and tastes to healthy foods once I learned that overeating and certain foods could shorten my life.

Heck, I even moved to the country when I realized the city was hazardous to my life.

Who knows! Maybe I just don’t understand certain types of people.

I made kale soup today, chopped wood, and built the first wood stove fire of the season. Great fun! Maybe next post I’ll talk about chopping wood. Thoreau was correct, as far as he went. But chopping wood has more benefits than warming you twice. Maybe I’ll even post John’s kale soup recipe.

The rainy season may have begun in southern Oregon, and I have still not fixed a leaking part of my roof, which covers a room of my house we call the sun room because of its exposure to the setting sun. I’ve known this particular flattish section of roof (it’s a converted porch) had a problem for at least three years. But I ignored it because it never actually leaked — until last winter.

The warning signs were in the popping nails on the rolled roofing, plus the rolled roofing was very old. It’s a job I needed to farm out to a company who could strip off the old roofing and hot mop on some new rolled roofing. But even though it finally leaked over the winter, I ignored making the simple phone call to a local roofing company that could take care of this problem in an afternoon. Finally I called them a month ago, only to have to wait until they came out, inspected it, mailed me a bid, had me accept it and give them a down payment, then put me on their schedule. I’ve got two more weeks to wait until they get around to my roof.

The rains of the last two days have been heavy enough to start the leak flowing. Oh shame! No excuse for my procrastination. I’ve already allowed the leak to damage the drywall of the ceiling and one wall, so I’ll have to go in and repair them after the new rolled roofing is put on.

A good lesson for me I guess. I usually don’t procrastinate, but hop right on a project. But the expense of hiring someone else to fix the roof made me hesitate. Now I’ll have to pay the roofing company, plus have a bunch of inside repair work to do myself.

The rain of the last two days brought a lot of cold air with it. It has hovered around 48 degrees, not quite enough to light the first woodstove fires of the season, but pretty close. I loaded both our stoves, but I’ll leave it up to Lenie to give the go-ahead to fire them.

Can America Be Saved from Stupid People

My book of columns, Can America Be Saved from Stupid People, has become BHM’s all time fastest seller. It is the 14th anthology we’ve produced, and where most of our anthologies take a little more than a year to recoup the money we spend to print them, this one took only six months. And it’s still selling well. I think the fast sales owe a lot to its very catchy title. Overall sales, however, have yet to surpass any of our 11 big anthologies. If you’d like to order it, click HERE.

Preorder the Thirteenth Year Anthology for $15

Speaking of the big anthologies, the Thirteenth Year Anthology is our newest big anthology going to print, and the November/December issue will have an ad for it for people who want to preorder it for $15 per copy. Readers of this blog can also order the book for $15 and be among the first to receive it — if you buy it NOW!

We expect the new anthology to retail for $22.50. In fact, all the anthologies will go up to that price, reflecting our increasing printing and postage costs, so if you need any anthologies to round out your compilation, get them now before the price goes up. Just CLICK HERE to order the Thirteenth Year Anthology.

We’ll mail the new anthology to you by the beginning of December, which will be just in time to make a nice Christmas present for someone.

Two of my sons are cross-country runners, one at the local grammar school and one at the local high school. I began training with Jake, the high schooler, but I ride my bicycle while he runs. Lenie has now joined us, alternately walking and jogging. Yesterday, as Jake ran off down the lower logging road, Lenie and I walked the upper one, which has turned into a beautiful young cedar forest with trees between 8 and 12 feet tall. Just about five years previous, I had walked up the same logging road with a friend who was a committed environmentalist as well as a writer for the magazine. The forest had just been felled and my friend could not hide his disgust at what he perceived as widespread environmental destruction by a logging company. I tried to explain to him that the logging represented a good use of forest land, and that I was familiar with the practices of the local timber company, Southcoast Lumber, and they did things correctly, namely, they logged, then burned, then replanted according to a very long-term logging schedule. “They have an economic stake in taking care of this land,” I said. “Thousands of homes will be built from the timber, then in another 20 or 30 years, they’ll log again and repeat the process.” I tried to explain to him that even the burning they do after logging is good for the land. “Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem of these forests. What could be more environmentally responsible than that?” He dismissed my explanation, as I knew he would. He was one of those environmentalists who seem to treat their beliefs as a religion. He blocked out explanations that showed timber companies doing any kind of enlightened logging. He simply looked at the denuded land and saw its ugliness. He couldn’t see the productive beauty that was eager to spring up as new trees. For him, logging was simply bad! Now here my wife and I were walking through this beautiful new forest. The logged timber has long ago become new homes. The land sloped away from us to the Pacific Ocean, and we could survey miles of new trees leading to the ocean. But I could see this in my imagination five years ago, amid the heaps of stumps and slash. Why couldn’t my environmental friend see that this was a responsible use of land, not a rape of a forest. Would he acknowledge it even now? I’ve lost track of him so I can’t ask him. I’ve met a lot of people like this. They are committed to a line of thought, and no amount of reasoning will sway them from their beliefs. And their thoughts DO become beliefs, as far as I can tell. Thought and reasoning implies listening to alternative views as you search for knowledge. Beliefs imply that you have reached your decision. There is no more room for talk. Too many environmentalists have become “true believers,” rather than pragmatists looking for sensible solutions to environmental problems. They have become part of the problem, not part of the solution. Companies like Southcoast Lumber are part of the solution. They are making money by caring for their forests. We’ll cut our Christmas tree out of this new growth of forest when there’s snow on the ground. We take care to cut out a crowded tree to help the timber company improve the new forest. Reminds me of a Robert Frost poem: Whose woods these are I think I know, His house is in the village though, He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. … I’ll skip to the end: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.