6-23-2010 0700 Madison WI.
Well, here it is, big as life. The center of the nutritional universe, celebrated by ADM as 'The Golden Dome'. It was worth traveling up the Mississippi on the Iowa side on rt 67 to take in this vista, which is the main event on the southern side of the city of Clinton. Archer Daniel Midland..which modestly lists itself as a processor of wet seeds, with an income of between $500M and $1B per year, (see http://adm.com ) is discussed on crocodyl (a corporation watch site, http://www.crocodyl.org ) as having net income of $1.7B on a total revenues of $62.97B in 2009. The corporate site lists the many countries where ADM is the largest oil seed processor...many. Its number 93 on the Fortune 500. Its as big as the 'Golden Dome'. And its in the center of the 'Obesity Epidemic' just as surely as Blue Cross is at the center of our health care problem. Yes, ADM is an American Success Story...just as Blue Cross and all of the other 500's whose business practices are studied and taught at business schools throughout the world. Unfortunately, just as in health care, there is an assumption in American Success that someone else is watching the moral compass...and in that regard, the old American song applies:
'the man at the wheel was made to feel
contempt for the wildest blow..oo..oooh
But it often appeared when the gale had cleared
that he'd been in his bunk below'
So as we sleepily become fatter and poorer, ADM becomes more successful. Ah well. We gotta get those younger mate's among us up on deck and watching the horizon. No, not the VERizon, the HORizon!!
So we spent yesterday comin' up the Mississippi. Green green green fields of oilseed of various kinds. Waterfronts, such as Dubuque IA, that have museums and places to walk and sit and enjoy the wide sweep of water. A sweep of about 600 B cubic meters per year, or half a million cubic feet per second. Yes, and there's a riverboat museum and aquarium on the waterfront at Dubuque, right next to the Ice Harbor, created by the Army Corps of Engineers to hold the riverboats wintering over while the Mississippi froze. And we passed barges, pushed by towboats, doing what they've been doing for centuries. Interesting to think we could paddle our kayaks from here to Pittsburg...or for that matter, Lake Itaska or Lake Ponchartrain. Or anywhere on the Missouri, the Platte, the Ohio or the Red rivers...all part of the Mississippi basin. But we are at the edge, here in Madison. Not much further north and east and water will be running into the great lake system.
We talked about a lot of stuff with brother James and Christina, because that's one of the benefits of family, its OK to talk about a lot of stuff. Now they are off to work...and I am left thinking about the stuff successful adult relationships are made of. The couples that I have asked generally agree that they kept on listening...not necessarily doing everything the partner wanted, but listening with intention to understand. And successful couples seem to remain curious..which I believe is where compassion begins. Curious about each other, and about the world. Keep it up guys!!
Well, Sala expresses a desire to go down to State Street and sip coffee and shop. I kinda wanna get on to the Dells and from there towards the Upper Penninsula.. The doppler radar suggests that there's a high coming later in the day...wha hoo!!
love in the struggle
Alan
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