"Sell the country? Why no sell the air, the clouds, the great sea?"
- Chief Tecumseh
Tampilkan postingan dengan label politics. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label politics. Tampilkan semua postingan
Rabu, 14 April 2010
Kamis, 23 April 2009
the day after Earth Day
Remember the little guy with the broom following the parade at the end of the intro to The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show? I often picture myself as that little guy.
So after all the great Green Celebration online and in commercial advertising of What We Can Do To Save the Planet for the past few days, and after watching the auditorium in Bay City filled with citizens wearing "Clean Coal" baseball caps and t-shirts touting "Clean Coal = Michigan Jobs" ... I'm feeling a tad cynical.
Note to World: There IS NO Such THING as CLEAN COAL.
Funny, some of the biggest financial supporters of the Wanton Earth-destroyer former president are giving away those energy saving curly light bulbs in their big box stores this week. There has to be a catch.
Ah, yes, mercury.
Invite a curly bulb into your home, invite a mercury contamination site.
Better turn your lights off, or switch to LED fixtures.
If you already have curly bulbs in your home, it might be wise to bone up on the proper way to dispose of these bulbs and how to clean up after breakage. Have a plan.
In case you haven't heard much discussion from your news, or governmental services, or enviro-green-gardening clubs, maybe you can start a local discussion, or at least spread awareness of this small but potentially significant issue.
(UPDATE: I just heard on NPR today the Republican party in Michigan is fighting tougher mercury regulations. But I must admit, politicians on the Right have no lock on stoopid - a prominent local Democrat was there in Bay City touting the air and water for jobs swap deal as well.)
Luckily, a few weeks ago, Sheryl from http://thisgreenblog.com sent this information on CFL bulb breakage from the Natural Resources Defense Council, to pass along to others.
IF YOU BREAK A BULB...
1) Open a window before cleaning up, and turn off any forced-air heating or air conditioning.
2) Instead of sweeping or vacuuming, which can spread the mercury around, scoop up the glass fragments and powder. Use sticky tape to pick up remaining glass fragments or powder. Wipe the area clean with a damp paper towel or wet wipes.
3) Dispose of the broken bulb through your local household hazardous waste program or recycling program. If that service is unavailable in your area, place all clean-up materials in a trash container outside the building.
4) Wash your hands after cleaning up.
5) If vacuuming is needed afterwards, when all visible materials have been removed, vacuum the area and dispose of the vacuum bag in a sealed plastic bag. For the next few times you vacuum, turn off any forced-air heating or air conditioning and open a window before doing so.
NOTE: The most common risk of mercury exposure to children comes from canned tuna because kids eat so much of it. Give them chunk light tuna rather than white albacore, since it's lower in mercury, and limit the portions and frequency according to their weight. Pregnant women should do the same. Get guidelines from the NDRC.
UPDATE (2:30 pm): I just opened an email from the Environmental Working Group with added valuable advice on curly light bulb (CFL) cleanup:
Cleaning up broken CFL bulbs
If a bulb breaks in your home, proper clean-up procedures can reduce airborne mercury concentrations by roughly half.
Follow EWG's 10 step clean-up checklist (link).
The most critical steps:
* Keep children and pregnant or nursing women away from the contaminated area.
* Close doors and open windows to allow volatile mercury vapors to vent outdoors. Stay away for 5 to 15 minutes.
* Scoop up bulb fragments and use tape to collect tiny particles. Seal the waste in a glass jar with screw-top lid. (Second choice: a plastic jar with a screw-on lid.)
This point on the EWG 10 point cleanup list is disturbing:
Disposing of spent CFL bulbs
Each state has its own laws and regulations for recycling or disposing of spent CFL bulbs. Learn about your state's recycling and disposal options at this EPA lightbulb site www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling.
Also, Earth911.com, a nationwide recycling information site, lists retailers like Ace Hardware, Home Depot and IKEA and municipal programs that accept burnt-out CFLs.
And, if you've ever had a thermometer or thermostat break ... the EWG adds:
"Thermometers, thermostats and silent switches made with mercury contain more toxic material and pose a much greater health risk. If one of these items breaks, read EPA's clean-up instructions at: http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm#thermometer"
The EWG website also has a thoughtful discussion on proper placement of CFLs in the home - don't put them in children's rooms, recreation rooms, or workshops where breakage is more likely. Don't put them in pole lamps. Don't use them in rooms with valuable carpets.
There is a buying guide on the EWG website as well, listing the bulbs with the least mercury in them. Check out the EWG Green Lighting guide for more discussion (a .pdf link is at the EWG site here).
So after all the great Green Celebration online and in commercial advertising of What We Can Do To Save the Planet for the past few days, and after watching the auditorium in Bay City filled with citizens wearing "Clean Coal" baseball caps and t-shirts touting "Clean Coal = Michigan Jobs" ... I'm feeling a tad cynical.
Note to World: There IS NO Such THING as CLEAN COAL.
Funny, some of the biggest financial supporters of the Wanton Earth-destroyer former president are giving away those energy saving curly light bulbs in their big box stores this week. There has to be a catch.
Ah, yes, mercury.
Invite a curly bulb into your home, invite a mercury contamination site.
Better turn your lights off, or switch to LED fixtures.
If you already have curly bulbs in your home, it might be wise to bone up on the proper way to dispose of these bulbs and how to clean up after breakage. Have a plan.
In case you haven't heard much discussion from your news, or governmental services, or enviro-green-gardening clubs, maybe you can start a local discussion, or at least spread awareness of this small but potentially significant issue.
(UPDATE: I just heard on NPR today the Republican party in Michigan is fighting tougher mercury regulations. But I must admit, politicians on the Right have no lock on stoopid - a prominent local Democrat was there in Bay City touting the air and water for jobs swap deal as well.)
Luckily, a few weeks ago, Sheryl from http://thisgreenblog.com sent this information on CFL bulb breakage from the Natural Resources Defense Council, to pass along to others.
IF YOU BREAK A BULB...
1) Open a window before cleaning up, and turn off any forced-air heating or air conditioning.
2) Instead of sweeping or vacuuming, which can spread the mercury around, scoop up the glass fragments and powder. Use sticky tape to pick up remaining glass fragments or powder. Wipe the area clean with a damp paper towel or wet wipes.
3) Dispose of the broken bulb through your local household hazardous waste program or recycling program. If that service is unavailable in your area, place all clean-up materials in a trash container outside the building.
4) Wash your hands after cleaning up.
5) If vacuuming is needed afterwards, when all visible materials have been removed, vacuum the area and dispose of the vacuum bag in a sealed plastic bag. For the next few times you vacuum, turn off any forced-air heating or air conditioning and open a window before doing so.
NOTE: The most common risk of mercury exposure to children comes from canned tuna because kids eat so much of it. Give them chunk light tuna rather than white albacore, since it's lower in mercury, and limit the portions and frequency according to their weight. Pregnant women should do the same. Get guidelines from the NDRC.
UPDATE (2:30 pm): I just opened an email from the Environmental Working Group with added valuable advice on curly light bulb (CFL) cleanup:
Cleaning up broken CFL bulbs
If a bulb breaks in your home, proper clean-up procedures can reduce airborne mercury concentrations by roughly half.
Follow EWG's 10 step clean-up checklist (link).
The most critical steps:
* Keep children and pregnant or nursing women away from the contaminated area.
* Close doors and open windows to allow volatile mercury vapors to vent outdoors. Stay away for 5 to 15 minutes.
* Scoop up bulb fragments and use tape to collect tiny particles. Seal the waste in a glass jar with screw-top lid. (Second choice: a plastic jar with a screw-on lid.)
This point on the EWG 10 point cleanup list is disturbing:
6. If a bulb breaks on a rug or carpeting:
Fabrics are harder to clean than hard surfaces; removing all mercury may be impossible. Hang a CFL-contaminated rug outside. Experts disagree on whether to vacuum carpeting. EPA recommends doing so and cleaning the vacuum afterward. Scientists with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection disagree: after testing various CLF cleanup scenarios [link], they concluded that vacuuming can spread mercury vapor and permanently contaminate the vacuum.
Keep infants, children and women of childbearing age away from the carpeting for several weeks.
Disposing of spent CFL bulbs
Each state has its own laws and regulations for recycling or disposing of spent CFL bulbs. Learn about your state's recycling and disposal options at this EPA lightbulb site www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling.
Also, Earth911.com, a nationwide recycling information site, lists retailers like Ace Hardware, Home Depot and IKEA and municipal programs that accept burnt-out CFLs.
And, if you've ever had a thermometer or thermostat break ... the EWG adds:
"Thermometers, thermostats and silent switches made with mercury contain more toxic material and pose a much greater health risk. If one of these items breaks, read EPA's clean-up instructions at: http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/index.htm#thermometer"
The EWG website also has a thoughtful discussion on proper placement of CFLs in the home - don't put them in children's rooms, recreation rooms, or workshops where breakage is more likely. Don't put them in pole lamps. Don't use them in rooms with valuable carpets.
There is a buying guide on the EWG website as well, listing the bulbs with the least mercury in them. Check out the EWG Green Lighting guide for more discussion (a .pdf link is at the EWG site here).
Sabtu, 07 Maret 2009
two living American heroes
...for the reality based community, that is.
Here Bill McKibben introduces Wendell Berry at the (CCAN) Chesapeake Climate Action Network's Artists for the Climate conference.
Go to Organic Consumer's Association website (link) to get inspired.
Here Bill McKibben introduces Wendell Berry at the (CCAN) Chesapeake Climate Action Network's Artists for the Climate conference.
Go to Organic Consumer's Association website (link) to get inspired.
Sabtu, 20 Desember 2008
The toad and the cardinal
This morning I heard a biographer interviewed on NPR who mentioned an essay by George Orwell, so I Googled it while drinking my first cup of coffee. And yes, it is worth reading. I'd call it timely - not timely in 'the round of the seasons' sense, but timely in 'the state of the world' sense.
It has a bit of that 'Be of Good Cheer' we should be telling each other right about now, a trace of "Heap on more wood, the wind is chill - we'll keep our Christmas merry still!" (a quote from the past which resurfaces in an economically cyclical manner and often encompasses the Christmas season).
Be of Good Cheer! There were red cardinals in the bare branched burning bush this morning, feeding on those brilliant berries, with deep snow all around.
Appreciate winter now.
Look forward to spring, but like an emergency dollar, keep hope tucked in your pocket and only pull it out to look at it when you really, really need it.
Here is that essay:
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
Essay by George Orwell
Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something--some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature--has told him that it is time to wake up: though a few toads appear to sleep the clock round and miss out a year from time to time--
at any rate, I have more than once dug them up, alive and apparently well, in the middle of the summer.
At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at another time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet-rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.
For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he hoes through a phase of intense sexiness. All he knows, at least if he is a male toad, is that he wants to get his arms round something, and if you offer him a stick, or even your finger, he will cling to it with surprising strength and take a long time to discover that it is not a female toad. Frequently one comes upon shapeless masses of ten or twenty toads rolling over and over in the water, one clinging to another without distinction of sex. By degrees, however, they sort themselves out into couples, with the male duly sitting on the female's back. You can now distinguish males from females, because the male is smaller, darker and sits on top, with his arms tightly clasped round the female's neck. After a day or two the spawn is laid in long strings which wind themselves in and out of the reeds and soon become invisible. A few more weeks, and the water is alive with masses of tiny tadpoles which rapidly grow larger, sprout hind-legs, then
forelegs, then shed their tails: and finally, about the middle of the summer, the new generation of toads, smaller than one's thumb-nail but perfect in every particular, crawl out of the water to begin the game anew.
I mention the spawning of the toads because it is one of the phenomena of spring which most deeply appeal to me, and because the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets. But I am aware that many people do not like reptiles or amphibians, and I am not suggesting that in order to enjoy the spring you have to take an
interest in toads. There are also the crocus, the missel-thrush, the cuckoo, the blackthorn, etc. The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London. I have seen a kestrel flying over the Deptford gasworks, and I have heard a first-rate performance by a blackbird in the Euston Road. There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.
As for spring, not even the narrow and gloomy streets round the Bank of England are quite able to exclude it. It comes seeping in everywhere, like one of those new poison gases which pass through all filters. The spring is commonly referred to as "a miracle", and during the past five or six years this worn-out figure of speech has taken on a new lease of life. After the sorts of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured. Down in the square the sooty privets have turned bright green, the leaves are thickening on the chestnut trees, the daffodils are out, the wallflowers are budding, the policeman's tunic looks positively a pleasant shade of blue, the fishmonger greets his customers with a smile, and even the sparrows are quite a different colour, having felt the balminess of the air and nerved themselves to take a bath, their first since last September.
Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird's song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is not doubt that many people think so. I know by experience that a favourable reference to "Nature" in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters, and though the key-word in these letters is usually "sentimental", two ideas seem to be mixed up in them. One is that any pleasure in the actual process of life encourages a sort of political quietism. People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous. This is often backed up by the statement that a love of Nature is a foible of urbanized people who have no notion what Nature is really like. Those who really have to deal with the soil, so it is argued, do not love the soil, and do not take the faintest interest in birds or flowers, except from a strictly utilitarian point of view. To love the country one must live in the town, merely taking an occasional week-end ramble at the warmer times of year.
This last idea is demonstrably false. Medieval literature, for instance, including the popular ballads, is full of an almost Georgian enthusiasm for Nature, and the art of agricultural peoples such as the Chinese and Japanese centre always round trees, birds, flowers, rivers, mountains.
The other idea seems to me to be wrong in a subtler way. Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him? I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and--to return to my first instance--toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.
At any rate, spring is here, even in London N.1, and they can't stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the
sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.
It has a bit of that 'Be of Good Cheer' we should be telling each other right about now, a trace of "Heap on more wood, the wind is chill - we'll keep our Christmas merry still!" (a quote from the past which resurfaces in an economically cyclical manner and often encompasses the Christmas season).
Be of Good Cheer! There were red cardinals in the bare branched burning bush this morning, feeding on those brilliant berries, with deep snow all around.
Appreciate winter now.
Look forward to spring, but like an emergency dollar, keep hope tucked in your pocket and only pull it out to look at it when you really, really need it.
Here is that essay:
Some Thoughts on the Common Toad
Essay by George Orwell
Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something--some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature--has told him that it is time to wake up: though a few toads appear to sleep the clock round and miss out a year from time to time--
at any rate, I have more than once dug them up, alive and apparently well, in the middle of the summer.
At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at another time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet-rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.
For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he hoes through a phase of intense sexiness. All he knows, at least if he is a male toad, is that he wants to get his arms round something, and if you offer him a stick, or even your finger, he will cling to it with surprising strength and take a long time to discover that it is not a female toad. Frequently one comes upon shapeless masses of ten or twenty toads rolling over and over in the water, one clinging to another without distinction of sex. By degrees, however, they sort themselves out into couples, with the male duly sitting on the female's back. You can now distinguish males from females, because the male is smaller, darker and sits on top, with his arms tightly clasped round the female's neck. After a day or two the spawn is laid in long strings which wind themselves in and out of the reeds and soon become invisible. A few more weeks, and the water is alive with masses of tiny tadpoles which rapidly grow larger, sprout hind-legs, then
forelegs, then shed their tails: and finally, about the middle of the summer, the new generation of toads, smaller than one's thumb-nail but perfect in every particular, crawl out of the water to begin the game anew.
I mention the spawning of the toads because it is one of the phenomena of spring which most deeply appeal to me, and because the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets. But I am aware that many people do not like reptiles or amphibians, and I am not suggesting that in order to enjoy the spring you have to take an
interest in toads. There are also the crocus, the missel-thrush, the cuckoo, the blackthorn, etc. The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London. I have seen a kestrel flying over the Deptford gasworks, and I have heard a first-rate performance by a blackbird in the Euston Road. There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.
As for spring, not even the narrow and gloomy streets round the Bank of England are quite able to exclude it. It comes seeping in everywhere, like one of those new poison gases which pass through all filters. The spring is commonly referred to as "a miracle", and during the past five or six years this worn-out figure of speech has taken on a new lease of life. After the sorts of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured. Down in the square the sooty privets have turned bright green, the leaves are thickening on the chestnut trees, the daffodils are out, the wallflowers are budding, the policeman's tunic looks positively a pleasant shade of blue, the fishmonger greets his customers with a smile, and even the sparrows are quite a different colour, having felt the balminess of the air and nerved themselves to take a bath, their first since last September.
Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird's song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is not doubt that many people think so. I know by experience that a favourable reference to "Nature" in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters, and though the key-word in these letters is usually "sentimental", two ideas seem to be mixed up in them. One is that any pleasure in the actual process of life encourages a sort of political quietism. People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous. This is often backed up by the statement that a love of Nature is a foible of urbanized people who have no notion what Nature is really like. Those who really have to deal with the soil, so it is argued, do not love the soil, and do not take the faintest interest in birds or flowers, except from a strictly utilitarian point of view. To love the country one must live in the town, merely taking an occasional week-end ramble at the warmer times of year.
This last idea is demonstrably false. Medieval literature, for instance, including the popular ballads, is full of an almost Georgian enthusiasm for Nature, and the art of agricultural peoples such as the Chinese and Japanese centre always round trees, birds, flowers, rivers, mountains.
The other idea seems to me to be wrong in a subtler way. Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him? I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and--to return to my first instance--toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.
At any rate, spring is here, even in London N.1, and they can't stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, spring is still spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the
sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.
Selasa, 04 November 2008
Rabu, 29 Oktober 2008
Seize the Day
I finally found a copy to share of the Monsanto Song that I mentioned so long ago. The lyrics must be out there too for a sing along. It begins "Those polar bears, now, Who really cares, now..."
Enjoy(?) :
I'm on this email list serve that sends a newsletter called Toxic Times, and every time I read an issue I get more and more disappointed in my g-g-generation, in my fellow Americans, and in The System. This Herbie, Garden-y blog was originally supposed to reflect the happy happy side of my character, and accordingly, I usually stick to reports on pollution and politics on my cranky blog.
That's why I haven't been around here for a while, not that y'all missed me. But crankiness aside, hasn't this been the longest, dirtiest, most depressing political silly season you've ever survived?
Where was I, oh yes - I'm posting this copy of the latest email newsletter from MNCEH in hopes that more moderate people, the kind who like a happy garden-y read will think about what we are doing here.
Enough is enough.
Thanks,
Ym-health
Toxic Times
A weekly recap of the top stories on toxics in Michigan and beyond
From the Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health
News Highlights from October 19 - 26, 2008
Download the following information as a pdf by visiting:
http://www.mnceh.org/toxictimes/news.php
MICHIGAN NEWS
Lead-poisoning rates high among kids in Kalamazoo Co.
Kalamazoo Gazette, Thursday, October 23, 2008
Lead poisoning, which can result from paint dust stirred up by renovation or remodeling projects, can impair a child's development and at high levels may cause death. Kalamazoo is one of 13 communities identified by the Michigan Department of Community Health as having high rates of childhood lead poisoning.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1224773437100800.xml&coll=7
Food allergies climb in American kids, study says
Detroit Free Press, Thursday, October 22, 2008
Food allergies in American children seem to be on the rise, now affecting about 3 million kids, according to the first federal study of the problem. But experts said that might be because parents are more aware and quicker to have their kids checked out by a doctor.
http://www.freep.com/article/20081022/NEWS07/81022020
Residents take up fight over cancer
The Detroit News, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
State asked for health study of industrial area believed to have elevated number of cases. Not more than 10 inches tall, three wooden crosses spray-painted white jut out of the front yard of Martha Allain's 11th Street home.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081022/LIFESTYLE03/810220378/1409/METRO
TEXAS TOWNSHIP CHEMICAL BARRELS Cleanup could finish in December
Kalamazoo Gazette, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should finish cleanup of dangerous chemicals from property at 10135 West O Ave. in early to mid-December, officials said at a public meeting Tuesday.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1224687013152080.xml&coll=7
NATIONAL NEWS
EPA weakens new lead rule after White House objects
Detroit Free Press, Thursday, October 23, 2008
After the White House intervened, the Environmental Protection Agency last week weakened a rule on airborne lead standards at the last minute so that fewer known polluters would have their emissions monitored. The White House Office of Management and Budget objected to the way the EPA would have some facilities, such as lead-emitting battery recycling plants, monitored.
http://www.freep.com/article/20081023/NEWS07/81023109
Toys containing banned plastics still on market
Wall Street Journal, Thursday, October 23, 2008
Starting February 10, 2009, children’s toys and childcare products containing three types of phthalates will be banned and those containing a different three phthalates will be placed on a temporary ban. Manufacturers of such products are attempting to liquidate their stock before the ban takes effect, and consumer advocacy groups are complaining that the law has effectively offered a grace period to sell the products rather than requiring their disposal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122472242723860917.html
Fire retardant costumes pose Halloween danger
NBC, Friday, October 24, 2008
The fire safety label, which was once viewed as a safety seal of approval on Halloween costumes, is now triggering concern as parents weigh the benefits against the potential health risks caused by PBDE used on the costumes.
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/health/story.aspx?storyid=94800&catid=8
Dentists back sealants, despite concerns
New York Times, Monday, October 20, 2008
The chemical is bisphenol-A, or BPA, which is widely used in the making of the hard, clear plastic called polycarbonate, and is also found in the linings of food and soft-drink cans. Most human exposure to the chemical clearly comes from the food supply. But traces have also been found in dental sealants. Despite the concerns, the American Dental Association remains strongly in favor of the sealants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/health/21well.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Critics slam chemical report
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Friday, October 24, 2008
Scientists, lawmakers, and advocacy groups criticized a government report stating that bisphenol-A is safe. Scientists have noted serious flaws in the study, and lawmakers have requested a ban on bisphenol-A. Much of the criticism intensified when it was discovered that the plastics industry was responsible for much of the FDA report.
http://www2.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=809667
Lead, smoke exposure in kids linked to ADHD
Cincinnati Enquirer, Monday, October 20, 2008Eliminating childhood exposure to lead and tobacco smoke could cut the incidence of ADHD in the U.S. by more than a third, according to new research from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Individually, each substance increases a child's risk of developing attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, but children exposed to both environmental toxins are more than eight times more likely to develop ADHD than children who weren't exposed to either substance, the study found.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081020/NEWS01/810200302
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
U.S. company challenges Quebec pesticide ban
Toronto Star, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Opponents are charging that a U.S. company's challenge of a ban on the weed killer 2,4-D in Quebec is undemocratic and based on misconceptions of its safety. Dow Chemical, who produces the herbicide, has filed a $2 million dollar suit against the federal government because of the ban.
http://www.thestar.com/article/522707
Toxic toys, jewelry recalled
Toronto Star, Friday, October 24, 2008
Health Canada has ordered thousands of toys and children's costume jewelry items off store shelves after a Star investigation found they contained dangerously high levels of lead.
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/523696
------------------------------
Articles were researched and compiled by Grant DeJongh, MNCEH Intern.
______________________________
Subscribe to Toxic Times – send an email to melissa@ecocenter.org
with SUBSCRIBE TOXIC TIMES in the subject line.
Enjoy(?) :
I'm on this email list serve that sends a newsletter called Toxic Times, and every time I read an issue I get more and more disappointed in my g-g-generation, in my fellow Americans, and in The System. This Herbie, Garden-y blog was originally supposed to reflect the happy happy side of my character, and accordingly, I usually stick to reports on pollution and politics on my cranky blog.
That's why I haven't been around here for a while, not that y'all missed me. But crankiness aside, hasn't this been the longest, dirtiest, most depressing political silly season you've ever survived?
Where was I, oh yes - I'm posting this copy of the latest email newsletter from MNCEH in hopes that more moderate people, the kind who like a happy garden-y read will think about what we are doing here.
Enough is enough.
Thanks,
Ym-health
Toxic Times
A weekly recap of the top stories on toxics in Michigan and beyond
From the Michigan Network for Children's Environmental Health
News Highlights from October 19 - 26, 2008
Download the following information as a pdf by visiting:
http://www.mnceh.org/toxictimes/news.php
MICHIGAN NEWS
Lead-poisoning rates high among kids in Kalamazoo Co.
Kalamazoo Gazette, Thursday, October 23, 2008
Lead poisoning, which can result from paint dust stirred up by renovation or remodeling projects, can impair a child's development and at high levels may cause death. Kalamazoo is one of 13 communities identified by the Michigan Department of Community Health as having high rates of childhood lead poisoning.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1224773437100800.xml&coll=7
Food allergies climb in American kids, study says
Detroit Free Press, Thursday, October 22, 2008
Food allergies in American children seem to be on the rise, now affecting about 3 million kids, according to the first federal study of the problem. But experts said that might be because parents are more aware and quicker to have their kids checked out by a doctor.
http://www.freep.com/article/20081022/NEWS07/81022020
Residents take up fight over cancer
The Detroit News, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
State asked for health study of industrial area believed to have elevated number of cases. Not more than 10 inches tall, three wooden crosses spray-painted white jut out of the front yard of Martha Allain's 11th Street home.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081022/LIFESTYLE03/810220378/1409/METRO
TEXAS TOWNSHIP CHEMICAL BARRELS Cleanup could finish in December
Kalamazoo Gazette, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should finish cleanup of dangerous chemicals from property at 10135 West O Ave. in early to mid-December, officials said at a public meeting Tuesday.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1224687013152080.xml&coll=7
NATIONAL NEWS
EPA weakens new lead rule after White House objects
Detroit Free Press, Thursday, October 23, 2008
After the White House intervened, the Environmental Protection Agency last week weakened a rule on airborne lead standards at the last minute so that fewer known polluters would have their emissions monitored. The White House Office of Management and Budget objected to the way the EPA would have some facilities, such as lead-emitting battery recycling plants, monitored.
http://www.freep.com/article/20081023/NEWS07/81023109
Toys containing banned plastics still on market
Wall Street Journal, Thursday, October 23, 2008
Starting February 10, 2009, children’s toys and childcare products containing three types of phthalates will be banned and those containing a different three phthalates will be placed on a temporary ban. Manufacturers of such products are attempting to liquidate their stock before the ban takes effect, and consumer advocacy groups are complaining that the law has effectively offered a grace period to sell the products rather than requiring their disposal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122472242723860917.html
Fire retardant costumes pose Halloween danger
NBC, Friday, October 24, 2008
The fire safety label, which was once viewed as a safety seal of approval on Halloween costumes, is now triggering concern as parents weigh the benefits against the potential health risks caused by PBDE used on the costumes.
http://www.wcsh6.com/news/health/story.aspx?storyid=94800&catid=8
Dentists back sealants, despite concerns
New York Times, Monday, October 20, 2008
The chemical is bisphenol-A, or BPA, which is widely used in the making of the hard, clear plastic called polycarbonate, and is also found in the linings of food and soft-drink cans. Most human exposure to the chemical clearly comes from the food supply. But traces have also been found in dental sealants. Despite the concerns, the American Dental Association remains strongly in favor of the sealants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/health/21well.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Critics slam chemical report
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Friday, October 24, 2008
Scientists, lawmakers, and advocacy groups criticized a government report stating that bisphenol-A is safe. Scientists have noted serious flaws in the study, and lawmakers have requested a ban on bisphenol-A. Much of the criticism intensified when it was discovered that the plastics industry was responsible for much of the FDA report.
http://www2.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=809667
Lead, smoke exposure in kids linked to ADHD
Cincinnati Enquirer, Monday, October 20, 2008Eliminating childhood exposure to lead and tobacco smoke could cut the incidence of ADHD in the U.S. by more than a third, according to new research from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Individually, each substance increases a child's risk of developing attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, but children exposed to both environmental toxins are more than eight times more likely to develop ADHD than children who weren't exposed to either substance, the study found.
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081020/NEWS01/810200302
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
U.S. company challenges Quebec pesticide ban
Toronto Star, Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Opponents are charging that a U.S. company's challenge of a ban on the weed killer 2,4-D in Quebec is undemocratic and based on misconceptions of its safety. Dow Chemical, who produces the herbicide, has filed a $2 million dollar suit against the federal government because of the ban.
http://www.thestar.com/article/522707
Toxic toys, jewelry recalled
Toronto Star, Friday, October 24, 2008
Health Canada has ordered thousands of toys and children's costume jewelry items off store shelves after a Star investigation found they contained dangerously high levels of lead.
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/article/523696
------------------------------
Articles were researched and compiled by Grant DeJongh, MNCEH Intern.
______________________________
Subscribe to Toxic Times – send an email to melissa@ecocenter.org
with SUBSCRIBE TOXIC TIMES in the subject line.
Selasa, 21 Oktober 2008
facing facts
Open Letter to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan: Farmer in Chief
By Michael Pollan
New York Times, October 10, 2008
Straight to the Source
Dear Mr. President-Elect,
It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food.
Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration - the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact - so easy to overlook these past few years - that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
Finish reading here
By Michael Pollan
New York Times, October 10, 2008
Straight to the Source
Dear Mr. President-Elect,
It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food.
Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration - the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. What this means is that you, like so many other leaders through history, will find yourself confronting the fact - so easy to overlook these past few years - that the health of a nation's food system is a critical issue of national security. Food is about to demand your attention.
Finish reading here
Rabu, 14 Mei 2008
Another Rainy Day
And I had a day off to play outside in my own garden, shoot!
Yes, I say "shoot", I wonder where that came from?
Shoots are good things in the garden, unless they're weeds.
Anyway, it's another rainy day, and I shouldn't whine. The weather bureau says our through-April cumulative snowfall for the winter was 2 tenths of an inch short of a record which was good. The ground and the trees need recharging.
But here with my tuna can measure I've accumulated under half an inch of rain this past several weeks when we should normally have collected at least a good inch a week.
The spring flowers have been tremendous, but the leaves of the trees could use a good rainy boost right now while they're expanding.
By the way, we had our first hearty salad meal last night, the few lettuces that overwintered in my cold frame are huge, sweet and succulent, and it felt so good to bring in a bowlful of home-grown leaves! And the baby lettuces are growing so prettily for summer salads.
So I'm indoors and maybe this would be a good time to talk a little about the Home Street garden project, of which I'm a volunteer gardener along with my gardening friend Sharron, some Master Gardeners, some Applewood volunteers, and some Land Bank people.
A few weeks ago four of us canvassed the neighborhood - I think we passed out seventy or so invitations - going door to door to reintroduce ourselves to the neighbors. Unfortunately the people we talked to the longest were unable to come to our meeting for health and scheduling reasons. But we did have some good conversations. Seven of us met at the church on the corner, the minister there is welcoming and willing to work with bringing out some of his people. If all goes as discussed, we will have a foothold in the community now.
We made a calendar, but Sharron and I showed up last week to pull weeds for a couple of hours before our first scheduled work day which was yesterday. We noted that the dead tree has toppled during the winter - part of it hit the roof of the vacant house next door. Someone needs to take care of that tree!
Yesterday five of us pulled most of the straw off of the beds and did some weeding and edging and cleaning up. We have a full lawn bag with winter accumulated trash - bottles, glass, food wrappers and so on. The used straw was going in the composting corner - somebody needs to build some bins!
I had to talk to convince Phil to keep the straw on a bed a la Ruth Stout. I read her "How To Have A Green Thumb Without Having An Aching Back" and all that straw on the compost beds being piled in the corner for future composting could just as easily be left in place for mulch to supress weeds and keep the moisture from disappearing. Only weeders and waterers would choose 'beauty' over utility, and for my gardener's eye, a well mulched garden looks healthy and beautiful.
Sharron had the idea to make a new straw-only bed near the Home Street sidewalk and plant sweet potatoes in it, which is a flash of inspiration. Why didn't we have sweet potatoes in the plan! Our new trainee volunteer, Nickie, was telling us about all the mouthwatering ways she uses sweet potatoes, and for me they are the embodiment of comfort food.
And our little depressed urban neighborhood surely needs some comfort. We hear gunfire occasionally while we're working, but I'm learning the folks there live with that as background noise, like the sound of cars and buses and smells of cooking.
A man was killed by gunfire on our block in early April, and while we were standing outside of the church after that first meeting, we had our first taste of immediate gun violence, a man on a truck was firing a handgun up the street while driving north on MLK Boulevard.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. What is this Beirut?
No, it is a depressed, forgotten neighborhood in the middle of the United States of America, a neighborhood with good people living there who tend their own yards and talk to us strangers, and who don't deserve these abandoned houses, and slum landlord owned rental properties, and the community decay that comes with powerlessness.
But I digress.
So we are ready for another truck load of compost to be dumped and wheelbarrowed in a couple of weeks.
Yes, I say "shoot", I wonder where that came from?
Shoots are good things in the garden, unless they're weeds.
Anyway, it's another rainy day, and I shouldn't whine. The weather bureau says our through-April cumulative snowfall for the winter was 2 tenths of an inch short of a record which was good. The ground and the trees need recharging.
But here with my tuna can measure I've accumulated under half an inch of rain this past several weeks when we should normally have collected at least a good inch a week.
The spring flowers have been tremendous, but the leaves of the trees could use a good rainy boost right now while they're expanding.
By the way, we had our first hearty salad meal last night, the few lettuces that overwintered in my cold frame are huge, sweet and succulent, and it felt so good to bring in a bowlful of home-grown leaves! And the baby lettuces are growing so prettily for summer salads.
So I'm indoors and maybe this would be a good time to talk a little about the Home Street garden project, of which I'm a volunteer gardener along with my gardening friend Sharron, some Master Gardeners, some Applewood volunteers, and some Land Bank people.
A few weeks ago four of us canvassed the neighborhood - I think we passed out seventy or so invitations - going door to door to reintroduce ourselves to the neighbors. Unfortunately the people we talked to the longest were unable to come to our meeting for health and scheduling reasons. But we did have some good conversations. Seven of us met at the church on the corner, the minister there is welcoming and willing to work with bringing out some of his people. If all goes as discussed, we will have a foothold in the community now.
We made a calendar, but Sharron and I showed up last week to pull weeds for a couple of hours before our first scheduled work day which was yesterday. We noted that the dead tree has toppled during the winter - part of it hit the roof of the vacant house next door. Someone needs to take care of that tree!
Yesterday five of us pulled most of the straw off of the beds and did some weeding and edging and cleaning up. We have a full lawn bag with winter accumulated trash - bottles, glass, food wrappers and so on. The used straw was going in the composting corner - somebody needs to build some bins!
I had to talk to convince Phil to keep the straw on a bed a la Ruth Stout. I read her "How To Have A Green Thumb Without Having An Aching Back" and all that straw on the compost beds being piled in the corner for future composting could just as easily be left in place for mulch to supress weeds and keep the moisture from disappearing. Only weeders and waterers would choose 'beauty' over utility, and for my gardener's eye, a well mulched garden looks healthy and beautiful.
Sharron had the idea to make a new straw-only bed near the Home Street sidewalk and plant sweet potatoes in it, which is a flash of inspiration. Why didn't we have sweet potatoes in the plan! Our new trainee volunteer, Nickie, was telling us about all the mouthwatering ways she uses sweet potatoes, and for me they are the embodiment of comfort food.
And our little depressed urban neighborhood surely needs some comfort. We hear gunfire occasionally while we're working, but I'm learning the folks there live with that as background noise, like the sound of cars and buses and smells of cooking.
A man was killed by gunfire on our block in early April, and while we were standing outside of the church after that first meeting, we had our first taste of immediate gun violence, a man on a truck was firing a handgun up the street while driving north on MLK Boulevard.
Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. What is this Beirut?
No, it is a depressed, forgotten neighborhood in the middle of the United States of America, a neighborhood with good people living there who tend their own yards and talk to us strangers, and who don't deserve these abandoned houses, and slum landlord owned rental properties, and the community decay that comes with powerlessness.
But I digress.
So we are ready for another truck load of compost to be dumped and wheelbarrowed in a couple of weeks.
Selasa, 06 Mei 2008
Al Gore Interview and Derrick Jensen Interview
I ran across these two interviews today - Al Gore was on Terry Gross' Fresh Air on national public radio. His new book, Assault on Reason is out in paperback now. Listen here.
And then a link to this interview was in my mailbox:
Read It and Riot
by Linnea Due
http://www.ecologycenter.org/terrain/article.php?id=13631
Due interviews a modern day prophet, Derrick Jensen on the publication of his latest book, a graphic novel As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial.
Here's just a sample - go read the entire interview on the above link to ecologycenter dot org:
Jensen: "I had a long talk at the airport with a man about Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth is great as an introduction but it's exclusionary. This is one step, but we need to do another 3,000 steps very soon.
There's this great book called The Nazi Doctors, questioning how people who took the Hippocratic oath could work at the death camps. Most actually cared about individuals in the death camps and did what they could to save them, but they didn't question the existence of the camps themselves.
We do what we can to save this or that creature, but we don't question the superstructure that's causing the problems in the first place.
I used to work at Pelican Bay. I was fully aware that I was participating in the greatest gulag on the planet, but on the other hand, the only thing keeping the inmates sane was my class. So we need it all—reform and revolution. That's the only thing that will save the planet.
"The solutions I've heard are so interesting because they're insane. They don't take physical reality as a given, but instead the given is that we must save present-day society.
We need to get back in the real world. The real world is being murdered before our eyes, like a video game that we can't back up. I sometimes wake up and think, this can't be happening. People can't really just lose the ice caps. Let's pretend you were talking to a seven-year-old: So, burning oil and coal and natural gas is causing global warming. What do you think we should do to stop global warming? Any reasonable seven-year-old can answer that question.
Here's carbon offsets: My house stinks because I keep shitting in the middle of the living room floor. I don't like it. So maybe I can pay someone to shit in his living room instead.
"I heard a radio show about the world-saving machine that can convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. The guy who runs Virgin airlines is going to give millions to develop this technology. We have it already. They're called trees.
"We need to think about what we want. I want to live in a world that has wild salmon. So the first question is what you want, and the second is what do you need for that to happen. The salmon need industrial logging to stop and the dams to be removed. And they need for industrial fishing to stop. They need industrial agriculture to stop creating giant dead zones, and they need global warming to stop, and they need the ocean not to be murdered.
Polar bears need ice and seals. Then they'll be happy.
The problem is that there's this awfully convenient worldview that presumes that you can consume a planet while you live on it. That's why we took it out of the context of corporations and jobs and put it into the context of aliens eating the planet (in his book). These problems are not cognitively challenging. They're not amenable to rational solutions."
What is it about graphic novels these days? Howard Zinn has a good'un out too. Do Americans need pictures to hold their attention?
Call me naive, but here's one small step for mankind, a suggestion in the form of garden art:
And then a link to this interview was in my mailbox:
Read It and Riot
by Linnea Due
http://www.ecologycenter.org/terrain/article.php?id=13631
Due interviews a modern day prophet, Derrick Jensen on the publication of his latest book, a graphic novel As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial.
Here's just a sample - go read the entire interview on the above link to ecologycenter dot org:
Jensen: "I had a long talk at the airport with a man about Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth is great as an introduction but it's exclusionary. This is one step, but we need to do another 3,000 steps very soon.
There's this great book called The Nazi Doctors, questioning how people who took the Hippocratic oath could work at the death camps. Most actually cared about individuals in the death camps and did what they could to save them, but they didn't question the existence of the camps themselves.
We do what we can to save this or that creature, but we don't question the superstructure that's causing the problems in the first place.
I used to work at Pelican Bay. I was fully aware that I was participating in the greatest gulag on the planet, but on the other hand, the only thing keeping the inmates sane was my class. So we need it all—reform and revolution. That's the only thing that will save the planet.
"The solutions I've heard are so interesting because they're insane. They don't take physical reality as a given, but instead the given is that we must save present-day society.
We need to get back in the real world. The real world is being murdered before our eyes, like a video game that we can't back up. I sometimes wake up and think, this can't be happening. People can't really just lose the ice caps. Let's pretend you were talking to a seven-year-old: So, burning oil and coal and natural gas is causing global warming. What do you think we should do to stop global warming? Any reasonable seven-year-old can answer that question.
Here's carbon offsets: My house stinks because I keep shitting in the middle of the living room floor. I don't like it. So maybe I can pay someone to shit in his living room instead.
"I heard a radio show about the world-saving machine that can convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. The guy who runs Virgin airlines is going to give millions to develop this technology. We have it already. They're called trees.
"We need to think about what we want. I want to live in a world that has wild salmon. So the first question is what you want, and the second is what do you need for that to happen. The salmon need industrial logging to stop and the dams to be removed. And they need for industrial fishing to stop. They need industrial agriculture to stop creating giant dead zones, and they need global warming to stop, and they need the ocean not to be murdered.
Polar bears need ice and seals. Then they'll be happy.
The problem is that there's this awfully convenient worldview that presumes that you can consume a planet while you live on it. That's why we took it out of the context of corporations and jobs and put it into the context of aliens eating the planet (in his book). These problems are not cognitively challenging. They're not amenable to rational solutions."
What is it about graphic novels these days? Howard Zinn has a good'un out too. Do Americans need pictures to hold their attention?
Call me naive, but here's one small step for mankind, a suggestion in the form of garden art:
Selasa, 29 April 2008
NGJL "Hope"
"Hope" by George Fredrick Watts
A bumper sticker on the car in front of me on Hill Road got to me yesterday, while on my way to the Home Street garden to do a neighborhood walk to invite the community to an informational meeting on urban community gardening. It was a quote from Mother Theresa of Calcutta (who we've lately learned also had a jaundiced view of religious institutions) that read: "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
Most probably the owner of that bumper was anti-choice in the Snowflake Debate, but I think Sister Theresa was talking about our many daily choices. Are you on the Recession Diet yet? Are you warehousing food? Are you planting a Victory Garden in your backyard? Or are you clearing the rice shelf at Sam's "Club"?
Did the Presidents of Peru and Ecuador telling the United Nations that 'growing food grain for fuel was making the choice to starve people in the third world' affect you as you drove your SUV to the mall?
Did you write or call your congressional representatives about the Farm Bill for Agribusiness, or the Taxpayer Subsidies for Corporate Oil?
What do you think when you read something like this that arrived in my e-mailbox today in my biweekly update from OCA:
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"We should not hide the word hunger in our discussions of this problem just because we cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."
- Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, speaking about the USDA's annual report on hunger in the U.S. For the first time in the agency's history, the USDA avoided the term "hunger" in its report and used a new euphemism in its place. The phrase "suffering from food insecurity" is how the USDA now refers to the nation's 35 million hungry.Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_3390.cfm
I don't spend much time listening to sermons, and readers who know me know my position on organized religions. But this old sermon (posted below) that I ran across while Googling 'Audacity + Hope' got to me. Another of those coincidental discoveries on this path I'm on.
I think, beyond the message of the sermon itself, which blow me away with its truth telling, that this sermon reveals a story that our corporate owned mass media missed, perhaps deliberately. I've heard the wealthy media pundits derisively playing with the words 'Hope' and 'Change'. Are they bitter, stupid, or just plain bad people?
Next time you hear someone deride Hope, Know them for who they are.
Here it is:
"Several years ago while I was in Richmond, the Lord allowed me to be in that city during the week of the annual convocation at Virginia Union University School of Theology. There I heard the preaching and teaching of Reverend Frederick G. Sampson of Detroit, Michigan. In one of his lectures, Dr. Sampson spoke of a painting I remembered studying in humanities courses back in the late '50s. In Dr. Sampson's powerful description of the picture, he spoke of it being a study in contradictions, because the title and the details on the canvas seem to be in direct opposition.
"The painting's title is "Hope." It shows a woman sitting on top of the world, playing a harp. What more enviable position could one ever hope to achieve than being on top of the world with everyone dancing to your music?
"As you look closer, the illusion of power gives way to the reality of pain. The world on which this woman sits, our world, is torn by war, destroyed by hate, decimated by despair, and devastated by distrust. The world on which she sits seems on the brink of destruction.
"Famine ravages millions of inhabitants in one hemisphere, while feasting and gluttony are enjoyed by inhabitants of another hemisphere. This world is a ticking time bomb, with apartheid in one hemisphere and apathy in the other. Scientists tell us there are enough nuclear warheads to wipe out all forms of life except cockroaches. That is the world on which the woman sits in Watt's painting.
"Our world cares more about bombs for the enemy than about bread for the hungry. This world is still more concerned about the color of skin than it is about the content of character—a world more finicky about what's on the outside of your head than about the quality of your education or what's inside your head. That is the world on which this woman sits.
"You and I think of being on top of the world as being in heaven. When you look at the woman in Watt's painting, you discover this woman is in hell. She is wearing rags. Her tattered clothes look as if the woman herself has come through Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Her head is bandaged, and blood seeps through the bandages. Scars and cuts are visible on her face, her arms, and her legs.
I. Illusion of Power vs. Reality of Pain
"A closer look reveals all the harp strings but one are broken or ripped out. Even the instrument has been damaged by what she has been through, and she is the classic example of quiet despair. Yet the artist dares to entitle the painting 'Hope'. The illusion of power — sitting on top of the world — gives way to the reality of pain.
"And isn't it that way with many of us? We give the illusion of being in an enviable position on top of the world. Look closer, and our lives reveal the reality of pain too deep for the tongue to tell. For the woman in the painting, what looks like being in heaven is actually an existence in a quiet hell.
"I've been a pastor for seventeen years. I've seen too many of these cases not to know what I'm talking about. I've seen married couples where the husband has a girlfriend in addition to his wife. It's something nobody talks about. The wife smiles and pretends not to hear the whispers and the gossip. She has the legal papers but knows he would rather try to buy Fort Knox than divorce her. That's a living hell.
"I've seen married couples where the wife had discovered that somebody else cares for her as a person and not just as cook, maid jitney service, and call girl all wrapped into one. But there's the scandal: What would folks say? What about the children? That's a living hell.
"I've seen divorcees whose dreams have been blown to bits, families broken up beyond repair, and lives somehow slipping through their fingers. They've lost control. That's a living hell.
"I've seen college students who give the illusion of being on top of the world — designer clothes, all the sex that they want, all the cocaine or marijuana or drugs, all the trappings of having it all together on the outside — but empty and shallow and hurting and lonely and afraid on the inside. Many times what looks good on the outside — the illusion of being in power, of sitting on top of the world—with a closer look is actually existence in a quiet hell.
"That is exactly where Hannah is in 1 Samuel 1 :1-18. Hannah is top dog in this three-way relationship between herself, Elkanah, and Peninnah. Her husband loves Hannah more than he loves his other wife and their children. Elkanah tells Hannah he loves her. A lot of husbands don't do that. He shows Hannah that he loves her, and many husbands never get around to doing that. In fact, it is his attention and devotion to Hannah that causes Peninnah to be so angry and to stay on Hannah's case constantly. Jealous! Jealousy will get hold of you, and you can't let it go because it won't let you go. Peninnah stayed on Hannah, like we say, "as white on rice." She constantly picked at Hannah, making her cry, taking her appetite away.
"At first glance Hannah's position seems enviable. She had all the rights and none of the responsibilities—no diapers to change, no beds to sit beside at night, no noses to wipe, nothing else to wipe either, no babies draining you of your milk and demanding feeding. Hannah was top dog. No baby portions to fix at meal times. Her man loved her; everybody knew he loved her. He loved her more than anything or anybody. That's why Peninnah hated her so much.
"Now, except for the second-wife bit, which was legal back then, Hannah was sitting on top of the world, until you look closer. When you look closer, what looked like being in heaven was actually existing in a quiet hell.
"Hannah had the pain of a bitter woman to contend with, for verse 7 says that nonstop, Peninnah stayed with her. Hannah suffered the pain of living with a bitter woman. And she suffered another pain—the pain of a barren womb. You will remember the story of the widow in 2 Kings 4 who had no child. The story of a woman with no children was a story of deep pathos and despair in biblical days.
"Do you remember the story of Sarah and what she did in Genesis 16 because of her barren womb—before the three heavenly visitors stopped by their tent? Do you remember the story of Elizabeth and her husband in Luke I? Back in Bible days, the story of a woman with a barren womb was a story of deep pathos. And Hannah was afflicted with the pain of a bitter woman on the one hand and the pain of a barren womb on the other.
"Hannah's world was flawed, flaky. Her garments of respectability were tattered and torn, and her heart was bruised and bleeding from the constant attacks of a jealous woman. The scars and scratches on her psyche are almost visible as you look at this passage, where she cries, refusing to eat anything. Just like the woman in Watt's painting, what looks like being in heaven is actually existence in a quiet hell.
"Now I want to share briefly with you about Hannah—the lady and the Lord. While I do so, I want you to be thinking about where you live and your own particular pain predicament. Think about it for a moment.
"Dr. Sampson said he wanted to quarrel with the artist for having the gall to name that painting Hope when all he could see in the picture was hell — a quiet desperation.
"But then Dr. Sampson said he noticed that he had been looking only at the horizontal dimensions and relationships and how this woman was hooked up with that world on which she sat. He had failed to take into account her vertical relationships. He had not looked above her head. And when he looked over her head, he found some small notes of music moving joyfully and playfully toward heaven."
II. The Audacity to Hope
Then, Dr. Sampson began to understand why the artist titled the painting "Hope." In spite of being in a world torn by war, in spite of being on a world destroyed by hate and decimated by distrust, in spite of being on a world where famine and greed are uneasy bed partners, in spite of being on a world where apartheid and apathy feed the fires of racism and hatred, in spite of being on a world where nuclear nightmare draws closer with each second, in spite of being on a ticking time bomb, with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and bleeding, her harp all but destroyed and with only one string left, she had the audacity to make music and praise God. The vertical dimension balanced out what was going on in the horizontal dimension.
And that is what the audacity to hope will do for you.
"The apostle Paul said the same thing. "You have troubles? Glory in your trouble. We glory in tribulation." That's the horizontal dimension. We glory in tribulation because, he says, "Tribulation works patience. And patience works experience. And experience works hope. (That's the vertical dimension.) And hope makes us not ashamed." The vertical dimension balances out what is going on in the horizontal dimension. That is the real story here in the first chapter of 1 Samuel. Not the condition of Hannah's body, but the condition of Hannah's soul — her vertical dimension. She had the audacity to keep on hoping and praying when there was no visible sign on the horizontal level that what she was praying for, hoping for, and waiting for would ever be answered in the affirmative.
"What Hannah wanted most out of life had been denied to her. Think about that. Yet in spite of that, she kept on hoping. The gloating of Peninnah did not make her bitter. She kept on hoping. When the family made its pilgrimage to the sanctuary at Shiloh, she renewed her petition there, pouring out her heart to God. She may have been barren, but that's a horizontal dimension. She was fertile in her spirit, her vertical dimension. She prayed and she prayed and she prayed and she kept on praying year after year. With no answer, she kept on praying. She prayed so fervently in this passage that Eli thought she had to be drunk. There was no visible sign on the horizontal level to indicate to Hannah that her praying would ever be answered. Yet, she kept on praying.
"And Paul said something about that, too. No visible sign? He says, "Hope is what saves us, for we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man sees, why does he have hope for it? But if we hope for that which we see not (no visible sign), then do we with patience wait for it."
"That's almost an echo of what the prophet Isaiah said: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The vertical dimension balances out what is going on in the horizontal dimension.
"There may not be any visible sign of a change in your individual situation, whatever your private hell is. But that's just the horizontal level. Keep the vertical level intact, like Hannah. You may, like the African slaves, be able to sing, "Over my head I hear music in the air. Over my head I hear music in the air. Over my head I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere."
"Keep the vertical dimension intact like Hannah. Have the audacity to hope for that child of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that home of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that church of yours. Whatever it is you've been praying for, keep on praying, and you may find, like my grandmother sings, "There's a bright side somewhere; there is a bright side somewhere. Don't you rest until you find it, for there is a bright side somewhere."
III. Persistence of Hope
"The real lesson Hannah gives us from this chapter — the most important word God would have us hear — is how to hope when the love of God is not plainly evident. It's easy to hope when there are evidences all around of how good God is. But to have the audacity to hope when that love is not evident — you don't know where that somewhere is that my grandmother sang about, or if there will ever be that brighter day — that is a true test of a Hannah-type faith. To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope — make music and praise God on and with whatever it is you've got left, even though you can't see what God is going to do — that's the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt's painting.
"There's a true-life illustration that demonstrates the principles portrayed so powerfully in this periscope. And I close with it. My mom and my dad used to sing a song that I've not been able to find in any of the published hymnals. It's an old song out of the black religious tradition called "Thank you, Jesus." It's a very simple song. Some of you have heard it. It's simply goes, "Thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Lord." To me they always sang that song at the strangest times — when the money got low, or when the food was running out. When I was getting in trouble, they would start singing that song. And I never understood it, because as a child it seemed to me they were thanking God that we didn't have any money, or thanking God that we had no food, or thanking God that I was making a fool out of myself as a kid.
Conclusion: Hope is What Saves Us
"But I was only looking at the horizontal level. I did not understand nor could I see back then the vertical hookup that my mother and my father had. I did not know then that they were thanking him in advance for all they dared to hope he would do one day to their son, in their son, and through their son. That's why they prayed. That's why they hoped. That's why they kept on praying with no visible sign on the horizon. And I thank God I had praying parents, because now some thirty-five years later, when I look at what God has done in my life, I understand clearly why Hannah had the audacity to hope. Why my parents had the audacity to hope.
And that's why I say to you, hope is what saves us. Keep on hoping; keep on praying. God does hear and answer prayer.
-The full text of Jeremiah Wright's "Audacity To Hope" sermon in 1990. Maybe, hopefully, Barack Hussein Obama heard the sermon that day. He did, after all, title his book, The Audacity of Hope.
Rabu, 16 April 2008
NGJL - ice cream castles in the air
I was sitting in the dentist chair yesterday watching HGTV when a commercial came on for a 'green house giveaway' which reminded the dental hygienist of a story she'd heard. A woman won a really, really big lottery and paid off all of her family's mortgages. And then she won another big one, and spent it all on herself, which led the young lady working on my teeth on a beautiful Michigan spring day to comment that winning all of that money was a scary thought.
Scary?
Not exactly the word I'd have used.
So, in the usual manner of significant things just 'turning up' on my path, this morning the video posted here was in my mailbox, waiting to be connected for y'all.
What would you do with three trillion dollars?
The Three Trillion dot org interactive website is lotsa good clean fun, and makes me wonder why we don't have the collective will as a nation to spend our fortune on good things.
Go try it out: you can even put your kid's mortgages and health insurance for your grandchildren in your 'shopping cart'...
Scary?
Not exactly the word I'd have used.
So, in the usual manner of significant things just 'turning up' on my path, this morning the video posted here was in my mailbox, waiting to be connected for y'all.
What would you do with three trillion dollars?
The Three Trillion dot org interactive website is lotsa good clean fun, and makes me wonder why we don't have the collective will as a nation to spend our fortune on good things.
Go try it out: you can even put your kid's mortgages and health insurance for your grandchildren in your 'shopping cart'...
Jumat, 11 April 2008
time for a check up
I get mail ... from the League of Conservation Voters, an historically non-partisan pro-environmental organization. (Btw, did you see this absurdity?)
And I am wondering if other gardeners are concerned about such political things as Senators' voting records on the environment as I am? If so, then why is there so little written about it in the majority of self described 'garden blogs'? Just askin'...
Here is the e-mail from the LCV (it's a few weeks old) and the look up I did in response. I've been hoping to read some other garden bloggers who might be concerned. I'd appreciate a couple links if anyone finds one.
How did your representatives vote on clean energy and global warming last year? You can find out in the League of Conservation Voters just-released 2007 National Environmental Scorecard!
A big highlight of 2007 was passage of the Energy Bill. Thanks to thousands of emails and calls to Congress by LCV supporters, the new energy law increased fuel efficiency for the first time in over three decades!
The progress we saw in 2007 was largely due to new pro-environment leaders that you helped LCV elect in 2006.
As a matter of fact, Dirty Dozen politicians we defeated in 2006 had a combined average lifetime score of just 8%. The new members who defeated them had a combined average score of 88%. What an improvement!
Despite the progress on fuel efficiency, there is still a lot of work to do. In the Senate, a minority forced the removal of a renewable electricity standard from last year's Energy Bill. We also lost a repeal of billions of dollars in unnecessary tax breaks for Big Oil and Gas – by just one vote!
Check the 2007 Scorecard to see how your Members of Congress voted on these critical provisions of last year's Energy Bill.
After checking your Members' scores, please forward this to friends and family so they can see if their representatives vote for the environment.
So I did:
==
Michigan:
Stabenow: 67%
Levin: 67%
The Candidates:
Obama: 67%
McCain: 0%, He didn't vote (absent!!!)
Hillary: 73%
But we have a record!
Past Senate Voting Record
on the environment
by John McCain and Hillary Clinton:
2006=
Mac 41%
Hill 89%
2004=
Mac 56%
Hill 92%
2002=
Mac 36%
Hill 88%
2000=
Mac 6%
SIX PERCENT! Shame on you, John 'Maverick'* McCain.
*his adoring press's fond nickname.
And I am wondering if other gardeners are concerned about such political things as Senators' voting records on the environment as I am? If so, then why is there so little written about it in the majority of self described 'garden blogs'? Just askin'...
Here is the e-mail from the LCV (it's a few weeks old) and the look up I did in response. I've been hoping to read some other garden bloggers who might be concerned. I'd appreciate a couple links if anyone finds one.
How did your representatives vote on clean energy and global warming last year? You can find out in the League of Conservation Voters just-released 2007 National Environmental Scorecard!
A big highlight of 2007 was passage of the Energy Bill. Thanks to thousands of emails and calls to Congress by LCV supporters, the new energy law increased fuel efficiency for the first time in over three decades!
The progress we saw in 2007 was largely due to new pro-environment leaders that you helped LCV elect in 2006.
As a matter of fact, Dirty Dozen politicians we defeated in 2006 had a combined average lifetime score of just 8%. The new members who defeated them had a combined average score of 88%. What an improvement!
Despite the progress on fuel efficiency, there is still a lot of work to do. In the Senate, a minority forced the removal of a renewable electricity standard from last year's Energy Bill. We also lost a repeal of billions of dollars in unnecessary tax breaks for Big Oil and Gas – by just one vote!
Check the 2007 Scorecard to see how your Members of Congress voted on these critical provisions of last year's Energy Bill.
After checking your Members' scores, please forward this to friends and family so they can see if their representatives vote for the environment.
So I did:
==
Michigan:
Stabenow: 67%
Levin: 67%
The Candidates:
Obama: 67%
McCain: 0%, He didn't vote (absent!!!)
Hillary: 73%
But we have a record!
Past Senate Voting Record
on the environment
by John McCain and Hillary Clinton:
2006=
Mac 41%
Hill 89%
2004=
Mac 56%
Hill 92%
2002=
Mac 36%
Hill 88%
2000=
Mac 6%
SIX PERCENT! Shame on you, John 'Maverick'* McCain.
*his adoring press's fond nickname.
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