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The Myth of Free Time

Northern Colorado Business Report
“Technology and the myth of enough free time”
By Kai Staats
22 October 2010

In my parents’ kitchen in Phoenix is a framed, printed advertisement from 1919. In this ad a woman stands next to her daughter who is dressed in her wedding gown. Both are smiling, the bride appearing fully overjoyed at the receipt of her mother’s gift: a Hoosier kitchen cabinet which the ad claims will help “retain your youthful energy and girlish appearance.” The advertisement goes on to state, “[I]n Hoosier homes, daughters know the miles of needless steps and hours of wasted time that this scientific kitchen helper saves. They honor it for the service it has rendered the “little Mother” who has been able to give more freely of her time to a happy comradeship with her children.”

The Hoosier was brought to market before cabinets, counter tops, sinks, even indoor plumbing were a part of every kitchen. It offered a flour sifter, a copper or tin clad work surface, drawers, shelves, and ready storage for just about everything a woman would need as she prepared a meal for the family.

The Hoosier was just one of many advances of modern automation in medicine, machines, and time saving devices. We now have blenders to mix food faster than we are able by hand; toaster, convection, and microwave ovens to heat our food without need to gather wood; refrigerators to keep us from preparing food every day; forced air controlled by automated thermostats to warm us without fire; washing machines to keep us from thrashing our clothes over rocks in the river, and rapid transportation which moves us in a few hours over distances which would otherwise require days, even months under our own locomotion.

We fill our kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and garages with time saving devices. We collect them and pile them high. We fix them, upgrade them, trade them in, hand them down, sell them at yard sales and in the end we bury them in mass appliance graves. We even purchase larger homes in order to accommodate our growing number of appliances. Yet, we remain without the desired, often promised free time.

Anthropologist Jared Diamond and his contemporaries surmise through archaeological remains and studies of modern nomads that our ancestors of some eleven to fifty thousand years ago enjoyed far more free time than we do today. It is believed those humans who hunted and gathered spent no more than a few hours a day, a few days a week working to provide for themselves.

The Vietnamese poet and zen master Thich Nhat Hanh wrote in Being Peace, “We are so busy we hardly have time to look at the people we love, even in our own household, and to look at ourselves. Society is organized in a way that even when we have some leisure time, we don’t know how to use it to get back in touch with ourselves. We have millions of ways to lose this precious time …”

As an avid traveler and adventurer who spends a good bit of time away from modern technology, I have often found in the past that the transition from a complex schedule to one of relative simplicity was neither smooth nor easy.

In fact, it was often more comfortable to slip back into the chaotic grind than to transition out, for my body and brain were wired for constant stimuli. When those stimuli were removed, the resulting anxiety was vivid, tangible, even scary. I often required a concerted, conscious effort to let go, to be free in the moment without concern for the location of my mobile phone or content of an anticipated email.

Every day I witness people emerging from an airplane, theater, classroom, even a river trip, and instantly checking their messages with the fervor of someone who has but a few breaths remaining in this world.

With faster, shorter bursts of communication through text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, we are literally reprogramming our species for a new kind of interaction with ourselves and with the machines that we employ.

In retrospect, I grew up as a highly focused child and teenager who spent countless, uninterrupted hours on a single project. I often forgot to eat or sleep until the project was complete. My mother would deliver dinner to my father’s workshop where I took up residence for the better part of a weekend when in school, or a full week in the summer months where I built robot arms, furniture, and toys.

As an adult who now struggles to focus long enough to complete a complex task in one sitting, I pay close attention to the intricate nature of our relationship with technology. In writing what you are now reading, I have admittedly stopped to check email and text messages a dozen times, my mind literally pulling my attention to another task or event, my train of thought derailed for the moment. I take a breath, allow myself the satisfaction of multitasking, and return fresh and focused for another round. I cannot help but wonder if Stephen Hawking is correct in “The Universe in a Nutshell” when he states (and I paraphrase) “we are not ready for the tools and technology we have created.”

If we readily embrace constant interruption under the glorified banner of multitasking such that we cannot enjoy a sunset or moonrise, a walk or a bike ride, then it becomes evident to me that the prospect of free time remains a myth for no other reason than our modern fear of being at rest. I do not speak of sitting still, but truly isolating our minds and bodies from the onslaught of stimuli in order to enjoy a direct conversation with another human … or nothing more than the exploration of what we carry in our head.

In this past year, I have paid careful attention to me time, down time, and free time. While I have never owned a television, I now make time to bake bread, make hummus from raw ingredients, and to read every night. In so doing, I have found more free time and enjoy what I eat, read, and experience even more. This is somehow contrary to what we believe about automation and mechanized assistance, but it seems that free time is something we must give ourselves when we have so many options to fill our every waking minute. Free time is a choice, the effect of saying no to the craving of more.

It seems free time comes not through better, faster, and more, but through simpler, slower, and less.

With the closing of this, my first column for NCBR in a half dozen years, I offer the first of many conversations around how we interact with the technology we create. Please know that with each column, I will be sharing with you some of my free time.

By Kai Staats|2017-10-21T16:21:11-04:00October 29th, 2010|Humans & Technology, NCBR|0 Comments

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

“The gentleman that’s the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger,” Nichols said. “He’s a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman.”

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

“They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community,” Nichols said, “the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate.”

But Nichols wasn’t buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

“They talked like they didn’t have any doubt they could fill it,” Nichols said.

That’s because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona’s immigration law.

This is, in my opinion, where the American system breaks down. It does not take a political analyst nor a philosopher to recognize the moral implications of a law put in motion to create jobs at the expense of the lives of other humans.

To read or listen to the entire report, visit Prison Economics Help Drive Arizona Immigration Law.

By Kai Staats|2013-10-08T20:55:35-04:00October 28th, 2010|Out of America|0 Comments

I dream of my grandfather often since his passing three years ago. Sometimes I awake in tears, other times with a smile for the simple knowledge of how much he gave to me, to everyone in his life. But last night I was gifted a dream which was both bizarre and humorous too, as I will share with you now.

Waiting to Remember
My father, my grandmother (on my mother’s side) and I were in a barn on a farm I do not now recognize, but in my dream we were welcomed there. The air was moist in the late afternoon. Heavy clouds hung low as an ominous front threatened rain and wind in that way that occurs only in the Midwest, a thickness to things that causes the crickets to stop chirping.

The barn was poorly lit in the dark afternoon, only one of a few interior, bare bulbs which hung from the overhead beams was illuminated. The floor was covered in sawdust which I assumed to have been produced from the many wood working tools and machines that abounded there.

I noted a table saw, band saw, planer, shaper, and drill press among many other tools for fine wood working. All top quality and apparently in good, working condition. A long, wood work bench showed many years of use, its modeled surface covered in loose shavings and pieces of what appeared to be the legs of a rocking chair.

My father and I had come to use a few tools to repair something for the family farm (which in my dream I assume was near by). While we inspected the many machines, waiting perhaps for the owners of this farm to greet us, I noticed my grandmother was staring out the open barn door, perhaps reminiscing about the years she spent with my grandfather who died three years prior. She was seldom present in the moment since his passing, seemingly thinking of something in the past or waiting for something to come.

All at once, every light came on and every power tool came to life at the same moment. The noise was overwhelming and sudden activity startling. I looked at my father who was obviously stunned. My grandmother turned to look back into the barn, but did not seem the least bit startled nor even perplexed.

She walked to the nearest of the tools, the table saw, and reached beneath to switch it off. She shook her head, her lips moving but the words we could not hear for the noise of the remaining machines.

I moved quickly to the power switches of those machines closest to me and switched them off as well, eventually making my way around the barn to them all. My father remained motionless.

Once the room was quiet again, the dust of finely shaven wood suspended between the three of us, I turned to my father who appeared more angry than surprised, as he said, “Kai! Why did you do that?!”

“Do what?”

“Turn on the tools. Why did –”

“What? Are you serious? How could I — They all came on at the same time. You saw it happen. It wasn’t me!”

My father started to respond, but at that moment we both heard my grandmother saying, nearly under her breath, “Raymond! Stop it!”

She was just then turning to again face out of the barn, but as she did my father and I both noticed her smile in a way that our elders do when they recall a joke or situation which will stay with them forever. She just shook her head and resumed her patient waiting.

My fear left me then, and I heard my grandfather laugh.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:43-04:00October 20th, 2010|Dreams|0 Comments

Of Roasted Corn & Cancer Killing Bacteria

Sovereign to Slick Rock
Friday evening I arrived to the Willow Springs Road, just north of Arches National Park and Moab. I pulled my mountain bike from the car-top rack, fastened the front wheel, and enjoyed a brief ride on the Sovereign trail, watching the sun set from a high slab of sandstone. My friends David and Becky arrived later that same night.

The next morning I rode on Sovereign again, feeling more able than the night before, riding to the first large drainage and then back to the car, just over one and a half hours round-trip.

Back in town, David, Becky and I road the Slickrock practice loop twice. I am pleased to find that even after more than two months off the bike, I was able to ride the full loop without stopping but for the first, up-hill sandtrap which continues to elude me despite my best effort.

That night I slept on top of a boulder at Big Bend along the Colorado river. Sunday morning I awoke with the sun and climbed for a little over an hour before heading south on 191 to the Canyonlands Needles District back country office where I planned a week-long backpacking trip in November.

Roasted Corn in Tuba City
I returned to 191 and continued south through Bluff, west to Mexican Hat, and then south and west to Kayenta and Tuba City where the Dine Fair was in its final day.

Never have I seen Tuba so full of people, commotion, and life. I ate roasted corn on the cob while I watched Navajo children dance to live drums. I was pleased to witness strong inter-generational support and interaction between toddlers, teenagers, and elders too. I purchased two gifts, just as a storm rolled in and night came on, the vendors quickly packing their crafts and goods.

I drove the remaining two hundred miles through Flagstaff to Phoenix, listening to two breathtaking stories on NPR, one about the role of nurses as holistic healers and the other an interview with the inventor of a synthetic bacterium which fights cancer, HIV AIDS, malaria, and cystic fibrosis.

Cancer Killing Bacteria

From an interview with Ananda Chakabarty by Dr. Moira Gunn on NPR’s Tech Nation

Ananda Chakabarty received the world’s first patent of a life form, giving us a modified bacteria which eats oil which has for more than two decades been used to help clean-up massive oil spills.

This unique bacterium has the inherent ability to thrive in a low-oxygen environment, as do cancer, malaria, cystic fibrosis, and HIV AIDS, the presence of oxygen reducing their growth rates.

It is my understanding that this is why my grandfather, while fighting cancer, was given incredibly high dozes of vitamin C directly into his blood stream in order to invoke the production of hydrogen peroxide which is toxic to cancer cells.

According to Chakabarty, this designed bacterium takes the native intelligence of three billion years of evolution and tolerance of anaerobic environments to the battle front, employing genetic know-how for the destruction of unwanted tissues.

While most modern approaches invoke one or two means of fighting the cancerous cells, this leaves many other channels for growth active and capable. Only with a multi-faceted attack, one that leaves the cancer cells without foundation for recovery, can the cancer be truly removed from its host.

Called “Azura” (spelling to be confirmed) for its blue hue, this synthetic life form may be the saving grace of many millions of lives. While the FDA is supporting this endeavor, the progress is of course careful and slow. As of the interview, Azura is being tested in five humans for whom all other forms of cancer treatment have thus far proved ineffective. Per the radio interview, they are gaining weight and appear to be recovering.

When the interview was over, I found myself nearly jumping from my driver seat, wanting to learn more for my own knowledge and at the same time, thrilled at the unbridled creativity and courage of individuals who see opportunity in the impossible.

The Road to Discovery
While I have driven from Loveland to Moab to Flagstaff to Phoenix many, many times and never I tire of the venture, for there is always something new.

Sometimes over the airways or satellite radio, but usually, immediately outside the car as the low, heavily laden clouds filter the sunset in way that may be described only as a master piece of color and composition; or as a woman quickly parks her on the left side of the road, facing into the traffic in order to give chase to her sheep who have found a hole in the fence and risk impact with a vehicle, a loss to her livelihood.

I long for a winter drive across the Navajo Nation, when thin layers of crisp white cover sandstone, sagebrush, and cacti and the peaks in Monument Valley appear to have sprung from a fanciful dream of a distant wonderland.

I cherish the dozen hours of uninterrupted, intense learning as I listen to half and full hour interviews or books on CD. These are the days in which I find solitude and at the same time, a connection to something greater.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:43-04:00October 18th, 2010|From the Road|3 Comments

An Evening with Scott Simon

“Baby, We Were Made for Each Other”

Last night Sarah and I attended an evening with NPR’s Scott Simon, hosted by KUNC, in Boulder. Scott is on tour to talk about his life at NPR, and to promote his new book, “Baby, We Were Made for Each Other,” about the experience of adopting two children.

For me, meeting Scott was putting a face to a voice as familiar to me as that of my own father, for I have listened to him nearly every Saturday morning for more than a decade, perhaps as many as fifteen years. His thoughtful approach to sharing not just sound bites but complete stories is the very essence of NPR’s philosophy which draws more than thirty million listeners every day.

Scott is a deeply intelligent, engaging, humorous individual who knows how to deliver a story in such a way that the audience laughs and learns at the same time. But by no means was the entire evening filled with humor, for Scott himself was moved to tears as he spoke of the loss of Dan Shore this summer, and the joy of his two adopted daughters. With him, many of us in the audience were moved as well.

Scott spoke of his friendship with Senator Paul Simon whose adopted son’s birth certificate stated he was Native American. Only at age twenty eight, when he was reunited with his birth mother did he learn he was actually Swedish. The mistaken identity was the result of a hilarious misunderstanding at birth, which when told by Scott caused the entire audience to nearly fall from their chairs.

Scott tells of his oldest daughter, now six, throwing a tantrum in a restaurant. Scott, his wife, and daughters excuse themselves from their friends to go home.

His daughter says to Scott’s wife, “Mom, I was hungry.”

His wife responds, frustrated, “Then you should have eaten the food you left on your plate!”

“No, when I was in my mother,” referring to when she was in China and her mother did not have the resources to keep her healthy, even before birth. And then she continued, “Why didn’t you come for me then?”

For as hard as we laughed that evening, we cried as well.

It is a rare individual who can be on the road as often as Scott is, speaking to people two, three or a half dozen times a month and on every occasion deliver his stories in such a way that each audience feels they were the first to receive him on what must surely be the beginning of his tour.

A Passion for Public Radio

I took from this evening two things: an appreciation for those a man who moves people without ego and without fear; and a deepened sense of appreciation for public radio.

In speaking with the station, content, and music directors of KUNC I found myself engaged with individuals who have been involved with KUNC for as many as three decades because they truly believe in what they do.

I was reminded that public radio is not just an alternative to commercial radio, but is an expression of a strong philosophy for how news is to be recorded, edited, and reported–for how the art of communication and story telling must be carried into the 21st century if we are to maintain some semblance of integrity in an otherwise heavily filtered world of sound bites and political slants.

There is not a day that goes by that I do not listen to NPR, in my home office or via satellite radio while driving. And as my friends, co-workers, and climbing partners will verify, there is not a day that goes by that I do not quote some portion of a story I have heard on NPR.

While this is may begin to read as a publicity piece for NPR, I do ask that for those of you who listen to public radio, please contribute to your local affiliate station; and for those of you who do not, you don’t know what you are missing

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:43-04:00October 12th, 2010|At Home in the Rockies|0 Comments

Seven Days on the Colorado

I am sitting in a cafe on the West end of Bluff, Utah, less than a mile from the San Juan river and the tall sandstone wall which defines the Northern boundary of the Navajo Nation.

Nearly every seat is filled. Between the expected sound of steamers and coffee grinders and juice mixers I hear German, French, and English. I am surprised, for this town is comprised of but a few hundred people tucked into a small pocket of Southwestern Utah. Yet, Bluff attracts tourists from around the world in the summer months, a landing spot to study archeology and launch point for the San Juan river.

Noah is sitting across from me, both of us winding down and out of our recent seven day excursion on the Colorado river, putting in west of Moab at the terminus of the Potash mining road, taking out on the north side of the eastern reach of Lake Powell’s stagnant waters, across from Hite.

Living History
I was the fortunate guest of Wild Rivers Expeditions, a more than 50 years old commercial outfitter whose founder Kenny Ross is known for a life spent on the San Juan and Colorado rivers prior to the dams and regulations and deep, cold blue water, where warm red rivers once freely ran.

There were eleven of us on this journey: Kristen (the owner of Wild Rivers) guides Jim, Noah, Colleen, Morgan, Marcus, Kate, Paul, and guests Herm and Val Hoops.

Herm’s history with the rivers of the Southwest goes back four or five decades, his stories of rapids run, battles (and pranks pulled) with Park officials, and drinking beer with Edward Abbey started on day one and ended, literally, on the final stretch as we passed beneath the steel girder bridge before the takeout where he pulled a Halloween mask over his head and then turned ’round grinning, his belly shaking as he laughed. He then passed the mask to all who desired to pose for the camera on our flotilla comprised of five lashed boats pushed against the wind and across the lake by a single motor at Marcus’ control.

Day One
We pushed off of the boat ramp with five boats and three kayaks, nintey gallons of water, at least four hundred pounds of food, and a quantity of beer that seemed improbable, but in the end the exact amount required by those who consumed.

The upper canyon is a dreamy mix of perfectly flat yet steadily flowing red-brown, warm water. The campsites are numerous, nestled beneath massive uplifts of beige, red, and blue-black sandstone and limestone whose histories are best described by those who make a living in their study. But one does not require a degree in geology to appreciate the raw beauty of complex striations, overlapping layers of sand and organic deposition squeezed, shifted, split, and lifted by time, pressure, and patience.

We floated that first day until half past ten in the night, the hot sun long since below the canyon walls, the full moon then illuminating our way. The oars hardly touched the water for the current was sufficient to keep us moving in the desired direction and free of the walls, boulders, and trees that would otherwise provide only a harmless bump to the boats.

We found anchor at a rocky ledge, unloading the bare minimum to establish camp. I placed my paco pad and sleeping bag a few meters upstream from boat “94”, my head at the edge and eighteen inches above the water’s surface. As I was not ready to sleep, I dangled my headlamp just above the water, mesmerized by the reflection of the red LED shimmer in the soft movements of the river beneath.

The next morning I rose before the others and hiked for an hour, finding opportunity for a little bouldering en route to the bottom end of a wash and pour-over which came from the higher ridges of the Canyon Lands to the north. Stark reds contrasting bright yellows and greens. The slight chill of the night was rapidly replaced by the bold rays of the sun which forced the dew to evaporate from sleeping bags slung over rocks and oars. Soon, we were again floating downstream, then under the protection of umbrellas, sleeved shirts, and sunscreen.

Without Time
Throughout the trip I read from a book I have had in my library for too long, “A Tour of the Calculus,” fulfilling one of my goals for 2010 as I desire to rekindle my love for mathematics. This, however, gave my companions a nearly bottomless supply of fuel for humor. But when I asked for help to understand some of the foundations presented in the text, and the same who made fun were unable to assist, we all realized how much we have lost since our college classes and I was for the most part (but never entirely) allowed to read in peace.

I look back and realize I do not know nor do I care when I lost track of time. Without watch or mobile phone, the concept of time was wonderfully abandoned. I could not, without counting backward, have told you the name of the day on which we found our feet again on the ramp across from Hite. It simply didn’t matter. Days of the week and hours of the clock are useful only for communication between two or more persons who need to plan for something in the future, something not immediately within their reach.

When the entire world is but a river and a set of boats and the people who guide them, the world is wonderfully simple and beautifully without the need for the management of time. While Einstein said something like, “Without time, all things would happen at once,” time passes on a river not by seconds, minutes, nor even days, but by movement past geographic markers. Remarkable cliff bands, contributing side streams and ancient dry canyons, and fine, white sand beaches make clear that all things are unfolding in slow succession, in the proper order, where distance traveled is a living, breathing function of speed and ever patient time.

Stories from Water
By camp fire I listened into the night of the stories shared between Herm and Kristen, speaking of more than fifty years of Wild Rivers through three successive owners, each a contributor to the history of the Southwest. The politics of water and waterways and the people who use them are as complicated as any such matter. Public hearings and private deals paint a history of use and abuse of what will continue to be a subject of controversy and litigation for centuries to come as fresh water in the Southwest, as with many places in the world, is in growing demand but of diminishing supply.

As our boats passed through more than twenty rapids, some in the Class 3-4 range, it occurred to me that we speak of the people who have move through these places, the ancients with the knowledge of their artifacts and the modern people by name and photos, each leaving their mark in one or more ways. But what of the water itself?

Water has for a substantial part of the history of the planet made the journey from cloud to snow capped peak to melt water, from mountain stream to the Colorado and back again to the ocean (as it once flowed) only to be taken from the surface by a warm wind and lifted to the clouds once more.

Does the water molecule recall each journey and look forward to the next? Does the water enjoy giving foundation to the river wave as much as we enjoy riding over the top?

Gooey, Stinky, & Happy
In certain places, there was this wonderful, gooey, stinky, brown-red muck that rested in long, warm swathes adjacent to the sand beaches and dunes. To stand in the mud with bare feet offered an incredible sensation. Warm, wet, and welcoming.

But the odor was to me too close to that of the sheep fold on my grand parents’ farm in Iowa and so at first, I avoided the whole thing. However, once off the boat, the more I struggled the more I sank, up to my thighs at one point. There was no turning back, for my pant legs were coated and I was only sinking further. When I let go of concern (and my pants as well), I followed Noah’s lead and ran along the sandy crust, diving chest down and head first onto the mud, sliding as far as momentum would carry me.

I had to remember to keep my mouth closed, despite the desire to grin, for fear that I would swallow the goo. I made the mistake of turning on my side which resulted in the packing of my right ear with mud, both ends of five cotton swabs later required to remove it all. I am not yet convinced I am clean, subtle gurgling sounds give fear that some ancient microbial life has found refuge in my brain, eating my memories for breakfast and my dreams for dinner at night.

Into the Dolls House
At our third camp, at the bottom of the fifth rapid we stayed for two nights. A strong wind pummeled our camp as the sun set, followed by scattered rain showers which continued into the morning. Noah and I left camp early just as Herm and Val rose to make breakfast. We hiked the back route to the Dolls House in the Maze District of Canyon Lands, a place notorious for its wild, twisting, challenging rock. Surprise Valley, roughly three quarters distance from the river bottom to the Dolls House was indeed a surprise, a welcomed wash of green after a steep climb up loose scree.

As Noah and I lost the trail above Spanish Bottom, having come in from the southwest, we climbed instead straight up a cut high to our left. Not entirely comfortable, the scramble was by no means simple and involved a few slightly exposed climbing maneuvers. At the top, we were pleased to find the way not only possible, but welcoming onto a high slung saddle. En route to join the Dolls House trail, we found two ancient graineries with sand mortar tucked slabs of sandstone yet in tact.

Marcus, Paul, Colleen, Kate, and Jim came later, trying at first to follow our tracks but in seeing our forward and then back again confusion, they continued high above Spanish Bottom, cutting across deep red soil to find the end of the switchback trail. Marcus later laughed, saying we appeared to have been lost, and then disappeared, having moved from soil to rock.

To describe each of the narrow slots and caves in which we walked, slid, and climbed would be too much for this single entry, but one stands out in my mind. The Dolls House trail cuts across the very top of a long, narrow grassy valley, moving into a long slot created by a split in a massive formation. Near the top, to both sides are splits which welcome only those whose girth is lean.

I removed my hat, glasses, and pack, then turned my feet opposite each other, sliding in a few inches at a time. I found myself stuck within the first few feet, the rock pressing hard against my ribs. But when I blew out all the air in my lungs, my chest relaxed and I was able to continue. When I breathed in again, I was immediately jammed. And then it occurred to me–I stood on my toes, breathed in deep, and lifted my feet from the ground, and did not fall! I waved my arms and legs, and Noah laughed hard. Only when I laughed too did the air escape and I sank back down to the sandy bottom again.

Stagnant Waters
Lake Powell is advertised on countless post cards, posters, and travel brochures as a paradise in the midst of an otherwise harsh desert of the Southwest. Scarcely clad golden men and well endowed women lounge on houseboats or dive from red sandstone cliffs into turquoise blue water. High powered personal water craft and skiers are drawn to this place every summer for long weekends of recreation.

The western waters certainly provide an incredible contrast, a man-made wonderment in what would otherwise be a deep river gorge, as it was when Colonel Powell traveled its length and before him, natives of this land who for millennia traveled along the deep canyon in order to raise crops along tributary deltas, storing grain in high, protected storage facilities.

What is not advertised is that when richly laden warm water meets cooler stagnant flows, the silt drops to the lake floor. Not an insignificant amount, between 60,000 and 100,000 acre feet per year are deposited in Lake Powell, currently on the eastern reaches near Hite.

While calculations give a wide range of estimations for how long it will take silt to fill the entire space behind the dam, from three hundred to as many as one thousand years, the current situation is one of immediate concern and public conversation. The Sierra Club demands that Glen Canyon Dam be removed to restore natural, seasonal water flow, saving more than 1,000,000 acre feet of water from evaporation each year, while others warn of economic disaster for local economies if the lake top recreation were removed. In the end, the Colorado River Compact remains the primary reason the dam exists, to ensure that ample water reaches downstream customers per the 1922 contract.

As I am neither a geologist nor an economist, any data I present here would simply be a regurgitation of my own research. Instead, I will share the impact Lake Powell had on me.

In the eastern reaches of Lake Powell, where it is difficult to discern where river ends and lake begins, massive piles of silt cling to bleached sandstone walls, some thirty to forty feet above the current water line. From the last rapid (currently #23) to Hite there are virtually no places to camp, let alone walk, for the water meets silt which meets canyon wall.

It appeared to me as I might imagine a flooded city, a bathtub stain high above the flash waterway on decimated buildings whose foundations are encased in mud and debris. The lower canyon invokes this sense of sadness as I see human engineering giving rise to something entirely contrary to the postcard and advertisements. It just feels wrong, as one might feel when looking up to see a car wedged in the lower branches of a tree or a building on its side, far from its foundation.

Only when the water level rises again will the deposition of the last high water be covered, temporarily making all things appear beautiful again. But beneath the surface, the silt will continue to fill the space between the canyon walls.

I look to a future not of thirty or another fifty years, but hundreds of years and wonder who will be here to manage the dam. Who will maintain the silt level by allowing discharge through the turbine bypass tubes? Who will check the concrete for cracks or open the gates when the fierce Colorado winters give way to saturated Utah springs?

If humans do not remove the dam, the cavitation and wave harmonics of massive seasonal floods will cause large portions of concrete to break free, pulling sandstone and rebar from the canyon walls. As the water moves to flow freely again, what silt was laid down will be carried downstream by the slow cutting of a meandering channel and by the rapid flash floods which will tumble concrete blocks until they disassemble into their basic elements of sand, aggregate, and cement.

The dam will be torn down, with or without congressional approval, by the natural process of reverse engineering that created the Colorado river way. The tools will not be diamond tipped blades nor dynamite, but the machinery of time, gravity, and tiny particles of sand.

For now, boatmen and their passengers will continue to enjoy what portions of the river they may run, telling stories of those times before the dam while looking to a future when the entire river will again be free.

By Kai Staats|2019-02-18T01:31:13-04:00September 7th, 2010|At Home in the Southwest|0 Comments

Williams Syndrome
In an experiment, a group of children with Williams syndrome showed no signs of inherent racial bias, unlike children without the syndrome.

Without Fear, Racial Stereotypes Fail To Take Root
A few people are completely and utterly blind to race: children with a rare genetic disorder known as Williams syndrome …

Imagine for just a few moments what this world might be like if our leaders, our public officials, those persons who hold positions of power were required, by law, to have Williams Syndrome.

What if patrol officers and police chiefs, if principals, preachers, teachers, congressmen and presidents did not, could not distinguish between white, brown, or black?

How would the laws be written, how would the jails be filled, how would the monies be earned and distributed if CEOs too were unable to differentiate between you or me? What an interesting world this would be.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:44-04:00August 5th, 2010|Out of America|0 Comments

No more … no, more.

When the paper no longer arrives, will you miss the sound of it sliding across the porch, coming to an abrupt rest against your front door?

When the bulk mail and government subsidies are no longer enough to keep the mail service alive, will your dog miss the excitement of the mailbox clatter and you, the discussion of the daily weather?

When the bank teller and shoe cobbler and the small appliance repair shop share the same place in our history books, will you miss the opportunity for someone who always remembered your name?

Soon, we will never again purchase music or rent videos from a store. We will increasingly work from our home, learn from our home, even travel from our home through a virtual world.

How, then, do we claim to live a more connected life?

The next generation will not likely know what it means to hold music in their hands nor blow dust from the cover of a book. E-readers will offer instant access to everything, which may improve literacy or reduce appreciation … or both.

Ironic that in a growingly connected world, it seems to me, people are actually more alone despite their always being online. Reaching out through instant feeds and sharing hundreds of snippets of noisy nothing while failing to explore the depth of silence.

In a world of “no more” it seems to me the ideal application will be one which turns off all our gadgets, gizmos, and devices in order to say clearly, “no, more.”

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:44-04:00August 2nd, 2010|Critical Thinker, Humans & Technology|2 Comments

…. your hands are swollen. They’re cut up. They’re stained. And the women that oftentimes they’ll work on their knees and their knees are brown so they won’t wear skirts because they’re ashamed of showing that off to people. I mean those are just the realities that farm workers face every single day. So it’s a grueling effort, a grueling job that takes place and they get very little recognition for what they do. But the reality is, that if it wasn’t for them, we would not have food on our tables every single day.

An excerpt from an interview with Arturo Rodriquez, President of the United Farm Workers, which has created a program called Take Our Jobs!, inviting unemployed U.S. Citizens to take a stab at agricultural labor, helping put produce on the shelves of every grocery story in this country.

Take Our Jobs!
July 31, 2010
By Ariana Pekary, producer

“It seems so simple: if the complaint about increased immigration is that the new people are taking jobs from American citizens, then you should proactively hire legal citizens for those very jobs. That’s what the United Farm Workers union has set out to do with a program called Take Our Jobs. We’ll see how successful they will be at getting Americans to work in the 100-degree heat for minimum wage. Bob talks with the union’s national vice president Giev Kashkooli about the program.”

It was refreshing to hear what in this place and time I believe everyone needs to be reminded of–the U.S. food industry relies heavily upon a migrant worker population.

Not only are the migrant workers not “stealing our jobs”, but it is very unlikely that any U.S. citizen, in particular of the middle class, will be willing (or able) to work an entire season (let alone a few days) in the physically grueling condition that we all take for granted every time we purchase readily available fruits and vegetables in our local grocery.

Looking for a job? Minimum wage. 10-12 hours a day. No health benefits. 200,000 openings.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:44-04:00August 2nd, 2010|Out of America|0 Comments

No More Deaths

Introduction
The controversy surrounding undocumented migrant workers is fueled by politics and economics, ethnicity and racism, social justice and international relations. As I am not an expert in any of these subjects, and have limited exposure through my volunteer work with No More Deaths, I will do my best to call upon my own experiences first, pulling in what data I have to support other than first hand accounts.

In subsequent entries to this “Out of America” category, I do hope to challenge some of the stereotypes and misinformation which surrounds this subject, answering questions asked of me and those which I have formed myself.

The following is my first entry, a story from just three hours out of three days on the border.

Of Boundaries & Borders
This past weekend presented an anomaly, a break from the intense late June heat with borderland temperatures in the high eighties or low nineties by mid-day and what felt like high fifties at night.

On my third day out, five volunteers for No More Deaths, myself included, drove for nearly an hour over very rough terrain, from bumpy roads to creek beds in which our four-by-four truck loaded with seventy gallons of water was routinely forced to a crawl, its driver carefully picking her way over basketball size boulders and steep, loose inclines likely impossible to pass without a low-gear transmission.

The desert trees clawed at the sides of the truck, the squeals of thorns and branches against metal and glass reminders that very little in the desert is soft, friendly, or welcoming.

En route to our final destination, we dropped a dozen or so water jugs several meters off the road at a designated water drop, and then packed food and water for migrants in addition to that which we carried for ourselves.

The five of us set out for the high saddle, likely over five thousand feet in elevation, two, maybe, three miles from the bottom of the wash where the truck was parked. Even with topo maps, a GPS unit, and two people who had been on this trail before, we found ourselves in a tight ravine, off course within thirty minutes from start. Such is navigation in this harsh terrain.

Stories in the Sand
As I have come to expect, there are signs of migrants in nearly every desert passage, high, low, narrow or wide, on or off the set trails. Footprints, water bottles, blown-out shoes, backpacks, and discarded clothing are clear signs of who has come and gone. The brittle nature of the bottles, sun baked degradation of the clothing, rubber, and plastics helps determine how much time has passed since those items were left behind when their owners passed through.

It is unlikely we will hike for more than ten minutes in any direction, on any trail, without crossing something left by a human in flight. There are running shoes whose soles are torn, ripped back, or completely missing; wing tips, penny loafers, cowboy boots, women’s high heels and children’s dress shoes too. We once found snake skin loafers with smooth leather bottoms mid-way up a very steep climb which was challenging even for me with proper, full hiking boots whose tread was designed for just such an endeavor. It was obvious that whomever once wore them realized the folly of continuing in what was likely his third or fourth day in transit from Mexico north.

There are countless thousands of stories to be told every month, millions over the years, the voices of passers by lost to the high desert wind but recorded in the trails themselves and in the personal belongings they have left behind.

The coyotes, the ones who are often paid to lead men, women, and children from south to north are, from the stories we have heard, often ruthless and without scruples.

“Victory trees” hold women’s underwear and bras to showcase those who have been raped by the coyotes, the others in the group helpless to do anything for fear of being misguided or left behind after paying incredible fees for the passage.

Everyone carries a backpack the size and style of a school book bag with thin shoulder straps and no waist belt. As the migrants are often told the entire journey is but two days walking at most, they bring little more than one or two small bottles of water, seldom more than a single liter if combined.

We have been told that on the first or second day over the border, the coyotes point to a distant glow in the night sky and announce they are but hours from Tucson. The migrants change into a fresh set of clothes, clean jeans and shirts, dress shoes and socks. They brush their teeth and hair, apply makeup and deodorant in order to appear less like migrants and more as locals, employed, and already embedded in our communities.

They drop the backpacks, soiled clothes, and toiletries in growing piles in shaded washes and then set off for what they are lead to believe is the final leg of their journey.

Three, sometimes five days later, they are without food, water, functional shoes, or hope. The coyotes long ago abandoned them, easily out-pacing their clients by day or night in order to return to Mexico and start again.

If they have a mobile phone, the battery is often dead or the coverage impossible but from saddles or peaks where they are also more likely to be spotted by the border patrol.

No, not all migrants come with coyotes. And no, not all are left to die in this manner. But the stories told are too often the same as I have shared, and the results repeated—giving up and heading back to the border, seeking the border patrol and suffering the consequences, or death.

At the time of this writing there are 128 confirmed deaths since October 2009 (one nearly every 24 hours over a given year) on the Arizona border. There are likely far more, but as these migrants are undocumented, coming not only from Mexico but from all reaches of Central and northern South America, and the vast desert able to hide bodies for years, or forever, the true count will never be known. The border is 2000 miles long, from Texas to California, and the total number of deaths each year estimated to be in the thousands.

Of Helicopters & Handcuffs
We reached the northern side of the saddle and stopped to drink and eat in the shade of a tree. But from the southern side of the saddle, we heard a helicopter, likely the border patrol in pursuit.

A few minutes later, each of us found purchase on the high rock ledges which lined the giant valley bowl, maybe a quarter mile from the helicopter which hovered too low. It swooped down to nearly touch the tree tops, rising, spinning, and moving completely around a large, high island in the middle of the valley.

Having been pursued by a police helicopter when I was younger (another story for another time), I can personally attest to the fear they instill, machines highly effective at scattering those caught in the wake beneath. The border patrol often uses the helicopters to cause groups of migrants to break-up, their chance for survival greatly reduced if no longer traveling as a group.

We were far enough into the desert to believe this was a reconnaissance mission only, or perhaps a training exercise as we were unable to locate any individuals on the ground and the area covered by the helicopter seemingly too vast to be focused on individuals.

And yet just moments after the pilot directed his airborne vehicle over our heads, the saddle behind us, and to the north, we saw four individuals emerge from a lower saddle on the west side of the valley island.

We waited, listened, and thought we heard Spanish spoken. We called out to announce that we had water, food, and medical aid if needed. We waited again. Only the person in front continued forward, the other three falling back, or at least that is what we discerned from out distant perch without binoculars or scope.

We opted to move down into the valley to determine if our assistance was needed. Fifteen minutes later, we caught a trail and crested only two rises which followed the deep ravine bottom before we came across two border patrol officers, one in front and the other behind fifteen migrants, each handcuffed to the person in front and behind, save the single woman who was without restraints.

We announced ourselves as humanitarian aid workers, desiring to provide food and water. The officer in front stated we were allowed to proceed, but needed to do quickly, while the officer in the rear questioned the former about his decision.

Given the restraints on the migrants’ wrists, we opened the bottles and bags, helping each to what they needed in the moment, placing the remaining water and food in their backpacks. The lead border patrol officer instructed them to thank us, as a school teacher would a group of children after visiting the local museum or fire house on a field trip. Each had already thanked us, as is most always the case when we meet travelers in this place.

I quickly interviewed the young lady. She said she was without pain or need for medical assistance. By her account, they had been in the desert already for five days, and yet were but two days from the border for someone who knew the route.

As always, it is difficult to determine who might have been the coyote, if there was one at all. Given their slow pace, it is possible they were already abandoned or without one from the beginning.

In just five minutes time we had emptied our packs, attended to each migrant, offered water to the border patrol officers (who politely declined), and they continued to the saddle from which we had come.

This is the point at which I always break down. Perhaps with more experience I will become accustomed to the heightened emotions which are inherent in these interactions. I hope not, to be honest, for I do not desire to become cold to this heated place. The dirt on my face was changed to mud when the procession was moved along the trail back to waiting dog-catcher trucks and eventually, the Wackenhut buses. We kept our distance, not wanting to apply undue pressure to an already tense situation. Past the saddle, we believe the officers and migrants headed west while we continued north, back to our truck.

How some sections of the trail were traversed by people handcuffed front to back is beyond me, for I needed at least one hand on the ground in a number of places to steady myself over steep, loose sections.

It was just past noon, the sun gaining its highest, hottest position in the Arivaca sky. We didn’t talk much during our retreat nor the drive back. We had done what we could. Little more to say.

No More Deaths
At camp, those of us down for the weekend packed our things in preparation to head home; those just arriving received final training by one of the No More Deaths’ founders who in his mid-seventies shows no sign of slowing. Crates of water bottles loaded into the backs of trucks, food and medical supplies into backpacks, the afternoon sun again beat down on the desert trails.

It is unlikely that today, tomorrow, or this year will be the end, a time where there are no more deaths. Until then, migrants will continue to seek a better life, the border patrol will continue to give chase, politicians who have never been to the borderlands nor spoken with an undocumented worker (nor likely a border patrol officer either) will continue to debate the cost to the American people while volunteers place water on the trails.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:44-04:00June 15th, 2010|Out of America|2 Comments

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