Malcolm Margolin

The next time it begins to rain ... lie down on your belly nestle your chin into the grass and get a frog's-eye view of how raindrops fall . . . The sight of hundreds of blades of grass bowing down and popping back up like piano keys strikes me as one of the merriest sights in the world.

Along with the mystical wonderment and sense of ecological responsibility that comes with the recognition of connectedness, more disturbing images come to mind. When applied to economics, connectedness seems to take the form of chain stores, multinational corporations, and international trade treaties which wipe out local enterprise and indigenous culture. When I think of it in the realm of religion, I envision smug missionaries who have done such a good job of convincing native people everywhere that their World-Maker is the same as God, and by this shoddy sleight of hand have been steadily impoverishing the world of the great fecundity and complex localism of belief systems that capture truths outside the Western canon. And I wonder__f everything's connected, does that mean that everything can be manipulated and controlled centrally by those who know how to pull strings at strategic places?