Reflections on the Current Energy Crisis

March 25, 2026

“What happens the first time is tragedy, the second time is farce.” — Karl Marx

Well, what about the third time, and the fourth, the fifth?

I remember back in 1973, when “the energy crisis” was front and center.

Having just been fired from my one and only position as a college teacher, for being “too experimental,” I was reduced to hitch-hiking to get around. This was in the Bay Area, back in 1973.

I got a ride with a big black woman. Opened the front right door, got in, sat down, closed the door, and right away, started to complain about “the energy crisis.”

Her response, both instant and definitive, in fact her voice has resonated inside me for over fifty years:

“What you talkin’ about girl?

“THE ENERGY CRISIS IS IN US!”

— she proclaimed while pounding her chest with her fist.

So, given the fact that the price of gas has increased from about $3.65 to $4.15 here in Bloomington, Indiana, and that was overnight last week, it’s obvious that yes, the current energy crisis stemming from the latest confusing mideast imbroglio is beginning to affect Americans.

But what, for human beings, is the original energy?

Not money. Not gas. Not oil. Not electricity. It’s the energy that fills and fuels the universe, LOVE, which, if we but open our hearts, rushes through to radiate and power all of creation.

If enough of us open our hearts and keep them open, no matter what, then our sorry world will blaze forth like a magic wand.

I composed an essay about Our Magic Wand a long time ago. And I still, after all these years, come to the same conclusion.

 

 

 

Reflections on the Transmogrification of “CELEBRATING DIVERSITY”: VDH on “Ungracious Immigrants”

March 24, 2026

A wonderful essay by seasoned historian Victor Davis Hanson has been picked up all over the internet in the last few days. Just google it to see what I mean!

OUR NEW UNGRACIOUS IMMIGRANTS

 

And well his historical overview should have gone viral already.

On the other hand, on my daily four to five mile walks I often pass by construction sites with workers who do not speak English, and who, I presume, are likely here illegally. 90% of these people flash a warm smile back at my own.

What are their histories? What brought them here? Did they enter illegally? Are these the ungracious ones? I somehow doubt it.

But, no doubt, the ungracious ones do exist. VDH spells out this phenomenon in dreary detail.

Meanwhile, way back in 1996 in a column for Sagewoman magazine, I mentioned how “Celebrating Diversity” has begun to, we would say now, get “weaponized” or “hijacked.” Back then, I didn’t use either of those words yet in that context. Instead, I used the word “co-opted,” which is still in use, but not nearly so muscularly descriptive.

https://tendrepress.com/?s=Celebrating+Diversity

 

It begins:

I winced when I learned of this issue’s theme. Not because I don’t want to celebrate diversity. Of course I do. Don’t all “right thinking” people want this? What upsets me is that this beautiful phrase, “celebrating diversity,” has been picked up, bandied about, co-opted. It is now just one more “politically correct” tag to use and abuse.

As often happens when many people simultaneously become aware of some feeling, that feeling will be described with a certain phrase. A phrase utterly appropriate to the meaning. A phrase which, furthermore, sings. “Celebrating diversity” is such a phrase, and it clicks into the collective unconscious.

As a result, more people use the words “celebrating diversity” to express the feeling inside them. The feeling builds. Or at least we think it does. We hope it does. But here’s where it gets tricky: the more people use the words, the more the words themselves take on their own life. What was originally an inspired symbol of a significant feeling is transformed into a sign, which merely points to something. What? The original feeling which inspired the phrase has been buried, under the projections of those who (intentionally or not) begin to use this phrase for their own ends.

 

Though I included the above essay in the newly filled-in tendrepress.com archive, I did not include an addendum to it which I wrote in 2018, as a blogpost on exopermaculture.com. That one, focusing on the LTBTQ+ phenomenon, is of increasing relevance, and I will today add it to the tendrepress website.

Has _Celebrating Diversity_ Devolved into _Identity Politics?__