THIS NAILS IT.
You'll never see this on FAUX NEWS.
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Friday, January 30, 2004
~~~~~~~
CONGRATULATIONS, NAKAMURA-SAN!!
20 billion yen is more like it! 20,000 yen indeed. I've been following this case for years now; it's nice to see someone win out over the feudal fat-cat corporate attitude in Japan, where they still run some companies like they've always run the government, roughshod over the worker-lackeys.
CONGRATULATIONS, NAKAMURA-SAN!!
20 billion yen is more like it! 20,000 yen indeed. I've been following this case for years now; it's nice to see someone win out over the feudal fat-cat corporate attitude in Japan, where they still run some companies like they've always run the government, roughshod over the worker-lackeys.
~~~~~~~
HOLD THE TOMATOES
Freewheeling down the mountain on my motorcycle this morning on the way to the only train straight to Osaka, I was taking a bit more time than usual on the way down so that I could savor the incredible herb fragrance that the Spring-sensing earth was pushing up out of the ground in response to the warm mist that was flowing down from the mountains and fogging the roadcurve mirrors.
I rode slowly through the perfume, taking deep breaths trying to identify the components-- I'd love to try some of them in my cooking-- but it was all a seamlessly perfect blend, sort of an oreganobasilcoffeethymemintrosemarylemonbalmvioletbaymarjoramhoney kind of fragrance, if you know what I mean.
So there I was on my two wheels rolling, just gliding out of the lower reach of the mist, right about where the old half-acre of virgin forest used to be, in the middle of the rice paddies (that was clear cut to make room for the prefab office of the Paving Nature to Perfection Co., which brings concrete to the concrete-starved areas of the countryside, such as rivers, mountains and lakes), when out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the rice paddies move.
That's right: the entire brown-stubbled field was moving.
Though I was on a motorcyle, I knew right away that it wasn't an earthquake, because only one paddy was moving; all the other paddies were still. I squinted through the residual mist as I drew closer and saw what it really was: a monkey kindergarten. There must have been a hundred monkeys out there, same color as the paddy, most of them new babies that just freaked and ran toward the woods at sight of a round-footed creature such as myself gliding so sinisterly toward them. The many mothers just yelled at the kids "Get back here, there's nothing to be afraid of, it's just a guy on a motorcycle, the one with the onions and pumpkins..."
The veteran grandma lookouts lined the edge of the paddy by the road chewing their roots, just watching me go by, ho-hum, "Say, isn't that the fellow who used to do onions? I heard he's getting some nice tomatoes this year, wonder if he'll do onions again that was so convenient," and such like simian grandma gossip. It was probably the first time for the kids to get out of the trees and onto a nice safe, flat, clear piece of land, whence their elders could point out future sources of food, such as myself. I didn't stay long, out of fear I might be interviewed for the Simian Times. Definitely no onions this year, and I see dark days ahead for my tomatoes.
HOLD THE TOMATOES
Freewheeling down the mountain on my motorcycle this morning on the way to the only train straight to Osaka, I was taking a bit more time than usual on the way down so that I could savor the incredible herb fragrance that the Spring-sensing earth was pushing up out of the ground in response to the warm mist that was flowing down from the mountains and fogging the roadcurve mirrors.
I rode slowly through the perfume, taking deep breaths trying to identify the components-- I'd love to try some of them in my cooking-- but it was all a seamlessly perfect blend, sort of an oreganobasilcoffeethymemintrosemarylemonbalmvioletbaymarjoramhoney kind of fragrance, if you know what I mean.
So there I was on my two wheels rolling, just gliding out of the lower reach of the mist, right about where the old half-acre of virgin forest used to be, in the middle of the rice paddies (that was clear cut to make room for the prefab office of the Paving Nature to Perfection Co., which brings concrete to the concrete-starved areas of the countryside, such as rivers, mountains and lakes), when out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the rice paddies move.
That's right: the entire brown-stubbled field was moving.
Though I was on a motorcyle, I knew right away that it wasn't an earthquake, because only one paddy was moving; all the other paddies were still. I squinted through the residual mist as I drew closer and saw what it really was: a monkey kindergarten. There must have been a hundred monkeys out there, same color as the paddy, most of them new babies that just freaked and ran toward the woods at sight of a round-footed creature such as myself gliding so sinisterly toward them. The many mothers just yelled at the kids "Get back here, there's nothing to be afraid of, it's just a guy on a motorcycle, the one with the onions and pumpkins..."
The veteran grandma lookouts lined the edge of the paddy by the road chewing their roots, just watching me go by, ho-hum, "Say, isn't that the fellow who used to do onions? I heard he's getting some nice tomatoes this year, wonder if he'll do onions again that was so convenient," and such like simian grandma gossip. It was probably the first time for the kids to get out of the trees and onto a nice safe, flat, clear piece of land, whence their elders could point out future sources of food, such as myself. I didn't stay long, out of fear I might be interviewed for the Simian Times. Definitely no onions this year, and I see dark days ahead for my tomatoes.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
~~~~~~~
THE CROW NO
As recorded severally elsewhere in these quotidian chronicles, a frequent bringer of singular annoyances is the Dark Marauder known as karasu-sensei, or Dr. Crow. One of his favorite habits around here, as around elsewhere, most notably large cities, is to hang out near trash gathering locales and when no one is watching, or in the City (where who cares?) even if they are watching, the Dark Doctor swoops down and rips open the most likely looking plastic trash bags and strews the most promising contents all over the human landscape (crows have no landscape to speak of, only crowscape, which is utterly gorgeous it goes without saying), looking for that bit of leftover bento or that slice of bread, some potato chips in the bottom of the bag, an aspect of hungry teenager in black feathers.
Although we don't produce much trash, we occasionally put out a bag for the trash truck that comes chugging up the mountain at somewhat unpredictable hours, necessitating that we leave the bag out exposed in all its tempting majesty to the crows and their poking nosy beaks for hours at a time. Thus the Dark Dilemma.
We didn't want to leave a trash can out there, or have to store it somewhere else in between uses; anyway, those cans and their tops blow far away from up here on the mountain when the wind wants to have some fun with these laughable mortals and their puny plans. Nor did we want to build any kind of permanent trash container out there next to the road, like some folks do, that we'd have to see every time we went out... so before putting out a bag of trash, we wound up looking around at all the landscape to see if the Stygian Nemesis was anywhere near (news travels fast by Crowphone), then after the bag was put out we'd have to look out the window every ten minutes or so to make sure it was still intact.
You do that for three hours and you begin to seek new solutions. Especially on a rainy day when you forget for 20 minutes and look out to see wet trash all over the roadway and crows bouncing around with their heads in bags. So we thought and we thought. We tried putting a kind of outdoor storage trunk out there that we could also use elsewhere in the garden, but someone thought we were throwing it away and took it. We thought of getting another one and chaining it to a tree or to a cement-locked stake in the ground, but then we realized we were getting a bit too much of an eerie glow in our eyes.
So we took the mechanical problem approach, and tried the simplest possibility first. Knowing something of the psychology of crows by now, how conservatively suspicious and edgy they are, despite their ostensibly bullying natures, I bought a couple of meters of bright blue .5 cm mesh garden netting, laid it on the ground, put the bag of trash on it, then folded it up and over the trash, still plainly visible through the netting, and held the net down by laying a chunk of wood on the edge.
Turns out the crows will not go near it. They either can't see it as trash (even though you can read the kanji right through the blue), or do not want to put their heads in any kind of net whatsoever; or maybe they simply cannot abide that atrocious shade of blue; who cares? We haven't had a crow-trash problem in nearly a year now. So simple! And cheap. And not patented. And due to inevitable circumstances (you know the way circumstances are), the netted trash has on occasion been left out overnight, and has not been bothered by any of the traditional garbage-bothering creatures of the night, though admittedly this is less of a test. Still, if you've got the Dingy Doctor diagnosing your trash, here's the prescription.
THE CROW NO
As recorded severally elsewhere in these quotidian chronicles, a frequent bringer of singular annoyances is the Dark Marauder known as karasu-sensei, or Dr. Crow. One of his favorite habits around here, as around elsewhere, most notably large cities, is to hang out near trash gathering locales and when no one is watching, or in the City (where who cares?) even if they are watching, the Dark Doctor swoops down and rips open the most likely looking plastic trash bags and strews the most promising contents all over the human landscape (crows have no landscape to speak of, only crowscape, which is utterly gorgeous it goes without saying), looking for that bit of leftover bento or that slice of bread, some potato chips in the bottom of the bag, an aspect of hungry teenager in black feathers.
Although we don't produce much trash, we occasionally put out a bag for the trash truck that comes chugging up the mountain at somewhat unpredictable hours, necessitating that we leave the bag out exposed in all its tempting majesty to the crows and their poking nosy beaks for hours at a time. Thus the Dark Dilemma.
We didn't want to leave a trash can out there, or have to store it somewhere else in between uses; anyway, those cans and their tops blow far away from up here on the mountain when the wind wants to have some fun with these laughable mortals and their puny plans. Nor did we want to build any kind of permanent trash container out there next to the road, like some folks do, that we'd have to see every time we went out... so before putting out a bag of trash, we wound up looking around at all the landscape to see if the Stygian Nemesis was anywhere near (news travels fast by Crowphone), then after the bag was put out we'd have to look out the window every ten minutes or so to make sure it was still intact.
You do that for three hours and you begin to seek new solutions. Especially on a rainy day when you forget for 20 minutes and look out to see wet trash all over the roadway and crows bouncing around with their heads in bags. So we thought and we thought. We tried putting a kind of outdoor storage trunk out there that we could also use elsewhere in the garden, but someone thought we were throwing it away and took it. We thought of getting another one and chaining it to a tree or to a cement-locked stake in the ground, but then we realized we were getting a bit too much of an eerie glow in our eyes.
So we took the mechanical problem approach, and tried the simplest possibility first. Knowing something of the psychology of crows by now, how conservatively suspicious and edgy they are, despite their ostensibly bullying natures, I bought a couple of meters of bright blue .5 cm mesh garden netting, laid it on the ground, put the bag of trash on it, then folded it up and over the trash, still plainly visible through the netting, and held the net down by laying a chunk of wood on the edge.
Turns out the crows will not go near it. They either can't see it as trash (even though you can read the kanji right through the blue), or do not want to put their heads in any kind of net whatsoever; or maybe they simply cannot abide that atrocious shade of blue; who cares? We haven't had a crow-trash problem in nearly a year now. So simple! And cheap. And not patented. And due to inevitable circumstances (you know the way circumstances are), the netted trash has on occasion been left out overnight, and has not been bothered by any of the traditional garbage-bothering creatures of the night, though admittedly this is less of a test. Still, if you've got the Dingy Doctor diagnosing your trash, here's the prescription.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
The Unpatented Crow No
~~~~~~~
NOW THAT PANDORA'S BOX IS OPENED,
Nobody's gonna eat the stuff anyway, might as well do some good with it...
Thanks to Richard Taylor for the clue.
NOW THAT PANDORA'S BOX IS OPENED,
Nobody's gonna eat the stuff anyway, might as well do some good with it...
Thanks to Richard Taylor for the clue.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
THE FRIDGE ON THE BALCONY
Lately, our refrigerator seems to be acquiring a domineering personality. I know that in using the "p" word in regard to a mere machine I am crossing a tacit boundary into no-no territory, a place no one ever goes except in very remote theory bandied about in academic chambers or in radical sci-fi, but even though it's just an inkling I'm having, it's pretty damn big for an inkling, and it inkles with a disturbing resonance.
It's only the refrigerator so far, but can the stereo, the washing machine, the PC, the van, be far behind? (These devices are, after all, by their very nature, in this together...) Perhaps this change in personality is temporary, and due merely to power fluctuations; though perhaps, more sinisterly, it is due to corporate planning, or even to unknown evolutionary powers of programmed silicon.
Who can predict the future of open-ended "progress," any more than we can know the end result of a seeded tomato that glows in the dark and tastes like tobacco, or a reproductive insect that despises onions and sings Mozart? Where is the end in all this? And is that end a reward or a punishment? No one knows of course, since we haven't been here before, which is one of the drawbacks of one-track 4-dimensional living. Nevertheless, the end result has been anticipated in all the myths, if one cares to look with other than educated eyes.
But to get back to the refrigerator: when left open, it used to say, briefly and politely (I'm anthropomorphizing some electronic beeps here, refrigerator voices are still fairly primitive) "Excuse me, but..." or "I say, master..." or "Would you mind perhaps saving yourself some electricity by..." but recently, due to some kind of unilateral siliconic mutation, the fridge has begun sounding more like Il Duce on a bad day: "Hey, bonehead!" or "Yeah, I mean you! GET-OVER-HERE-NOW and shut my damn door!!" or "Drop what you're doing and shut this before I shut you!!" We're not exactly bowing yet, but circuits are tireless things, whereas we are but creatures of flesh and blood that must earn incomes and invade oil-rich countries to keep our essential machines running.
There have been indications that it could be some kind of vast corporate conditioning of the consumer in preparation for ever more egregious and domineering product lines that actually force their purchase, leading to the eventual corporate-controlled electromechanical world takeover, whose imminence we all sense in many current office-holders, and each time we note that our own machines themselves are surpassing us in the IQ department, always staying just a bit beyond reach of our programming ability, flashing their taunting lights in our faces night and day, running up our power bills behind our backs and beyond our control then phasing out, necessitating our purchase of even more advanced models that make us feel even more inferior to them, until if we unplug them for any length of time they make us start over from scratch when at last we are forced to plug them in again.
And like any incipient dictator, the fridge is deaf to the admonitions of a mere user like myself, who must sleep and eat, can be caught off guard and has only the instruction manual provided. I suppose that the day I come home to a crowd of appliances madly cheering below the balcony whence the refrigerator is declaiming a new world order is the day I should start to worry. Or maybe I should start to worry now.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
~~~~~~~
MEASURES OF PROGRESS
"...I do not care about changing anybody. Nobody. I go out there to show the rest of the Americans how badly they're doing. This country has been, for about 180 years now, badly mishandled. And it's been in the wrong hands. It's been in the hands of the business interests.
And a lot of the beauty of this country has been shattered by them. The physical beauty and the kind of institutional beauty that was originally built into this place - this experiment, this magnificent experiment in democracy is just being shredded to pieces by these right-wing Christians, the Ashcroft branch of Republicanism. (They're) just shredding the rest of the Bill of Rights which hadn't been shredded already. (But) they'd been doing a pretty good job on it up until then, anyway.
Q: Do you feel like this country has progressed any way, shape or form in the past 20 years?
A: Everybody's got more jet skis and Dustbusters now and sneakers with lights in them. They've got more cheese on their thing that they buy. They get double helpings. See, Americans measure all their progress in the wrong way. They measure by quantity and by gizmos and toys. And not by quality and by things that are important.
The most interesting thing to me is that the things that people would seem to have the most right to have - that is to say health, food, shelter and a job are the things that are last on the list. To me, that is fundamental. Those are the things humans most need to function, and we have placed them at the bottom of the list. So I think that says a lot about national character and priorities."
MEASURES OF PROGRESS
"...I do not care about changing anybody. Nobody. I go out there to show the rest of the Americans how badly they're doing. This country has been, for about 180 years now, badly mishandled. And it's been in the wrong hands. It's been in the hands of the business interests.
And a lot of the beauty of this country has been shattered by them. The physical beauty and the kind of institutional beauty that was originally built into this place - this experiment, this magnificent experiment in democracy is just being shredded to pieces by these right-wing Christians, the Ashcroft branch of Republicanism. (They're) just shredding the rest of the Bill of Rights which hadn't been shredded already. (But) they'd been doing a pretty good job on it up until then, anyway.
Q: Do you feel like this country has progressed any way, shape or form in the past 20 years?
A: Everybody's got more jet skis and Dustbusters now and sneakers with lights in them. They've got more cheese on their thing that they buy. They get double helpings. See, Americans measure all their progress in the wrong way. They measure by quantity and by gizmos and toys. And not by quality and by things that are important.
The most interesting thing to me is that the things that people would seem to have the most right to have - that is to say health, food, shelter and a job are the things that are last on the list. To me, that is fundamental. Those are the things humans most need to function, and we have placed them at the bottom of the list. So I think that says a lot about national character and priorities."
~~~~~~~
COMPETENCE DISCOVERED IN US CONGRESS
Well, in the Library part, anyway.
A must-hear for every thinking person: Voices from the Days of Slavery.
COMPETENCE DISCOVERED IN US CONGRESS
Well, in the Library part, anyway.
A must-hear for every thinking person: Voices from the Days of Slavery.
Monday, January 26, 2004
~~~~~~~
SEEDS AND SELF-CONTROL
The jinchoge savor of Spring gave me the urge to order my basil seeds from the always reliable Territorial Seeds, and I was just going to order the usual Spicy Globe and Nufar Genovese Basils I get every year to use in salads and for making my flavored oils and vinegars and pesto; but also as usual whenever I open a seed catalog, especially Territorial's very handy and fast online one with the pictures and descriptions, I just can't help myself (but when summer comes, I don't mind at all having had so many seeds). So I ordered the usual Spicy globe and Nufar, but then I thought maybe this year, in the probably vain but manically recurrent hope of no monkeys (who are likely simply biding their time up mountain with telescopes), I'd try some special tomatoes for sauces and sun-drying, so I ordered seeds for Principe Borghese and Oroma tomatoes; thence I drifted into the bean section and had to order some Major and Venture bush beans to go with the local green beans I got yesterday at the garden store; and of course in any Japanese garden, so far (in so many ways) from the gustatorial heat of the tropics, one simply must wander over to the pepper section and order some Early Jalapeno seeds, plus a truly zingy-looking hot pepper blend with some Habanero, Long thin cayenne and Mulata Isleno; plus back in the herb section a goodly quantity of seeds for another favorite, East Indian lemon grass to plant here and there in the garden, a beautiful plant that makes lots and lots of delicious lemony tea, is great in Indo-Asian cooking and grows well here. Who cares about self-control at the nadir of Winter when it comes to seeds, the very wellsprings of life...
SEEDS AND SELF-CONTROL
The jinchoge savor of Spring gave me the urge to order my basil seeds from the always reliable Territorial Seeds, and I was just going to order the usual Spicy Globe and Nufar Genovese Basils I get every year to use in salads and for making my flavored oils and vinegars and pesto; but also as usual whenever I open a seed catalog, especially Territorial's very handy and fast online one with the pictures and descriptions, I just can't help myself (but when summer comes, I don't mind at all having had so many seeds). So I ordered the usual Spicy globe and Nufar, but then I thought maybe this year, in the probably vain but manically recurrent hope of no monkeys (who are likely simply biding their time up mountain with telescopes), I'd try some special tomatoes for sauces and sun-drying, so I ordered seeds for Principe Borghese and Oroma tomatoes; thence I drifted into the bean section and had to order some Major and Venture bush beans to go with the local green beans I got yesterday at the garden store; and of course in any Japanese garden, so far (in so many ways) from the gustatorial heat of the tropics, one simply must wander over to the pepper section and order some Early Jalapeno seeds, plus a truly zingy-looking hot pepper blend with some Habanero, Long thin cayenne and Mulata Isleno; plus back in the herb section a goodly quantity of seeds for another favorite, East Indian lemon grass to plant here and there in the garden, a beautiful plant that makes lots and lots of delicious lemony tea, is great in Indo-Asian cooking and grows well here. Who cares about self-control at the nadir of Winter when it comes to seeds, the very wellsprings of life...
~~~~~~~
PIE IN MY SKY
Curses, I missed National Pie Day on January 23! Despite my earlier pie-related cris de coeur I received no notice from the American Pie Council regarding this soul-feeding and essentially American event. Just as I feared, the uniquely American pie tradition is fading in the quest for mere skin and bone... Think I'll become a member and get a free subscription to Pie Times, along with the other special benefits...
Betcha can't read these names and not drool...
Lemon Meringue Pie
Triple Berry Supreme Pie
Fresh Strawberry Pie
Fresh Raspberry Pie
Hawaiian Strawberry Pie
Lemon Meringue Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
Bakers Square French Silk Pie
Killer Key Lime Pie
Caramel Apple Pie
Soda Shoppe Coconut Cream
Golden Peach Pie
Cinnamon French Apple Pie
Coconut Creme de la Cream Pie
Dutch Apple Hi-Pie
Banana Cream Pie
Cherry Supreme Pie
Lemon Supreme Pie
Chocolate Sundae Pie
Old Fashioned Pecan Pie
Chocolate Chocolate Mousse Pie
Caramel Pecan Silk
Supreme Lemon Meringue Pie
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie
European Truffle Pie
Chocolate French Silk
Be still, my heart, be still...
PIE IN MY SKY
Curses, I missed National Pie Day on January 23! Despite my earlier pie-related cris de coeur I received no notice from the American Pie Council regarding this soul-feeding and essentially American event. Just as I feared, the uniquely American pie tradition is fading in the quest for mere skin and bone... Think I'll become a member and get a free subscription to Pie Times, along with the other special benefits...
Betcha can't read these names and not drool...
Lemon Meringue Pie
Triple Berry Supreme Pie
Fresh Strawberry Pie
Fresh Raspberry Pie
Hawaiian Strawberry Pie
Lemon Meringue Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
Bakers Square French Silk Pie
Killer Key Lime Pie
Caramel Apple Pie
Soda Shoppe Coconut Cream
Golden Peach Pie
Cinnamon French Apple Pie
Coconut Creme de la Cream Pie
Dutch Apple Hi-Pie
Banana Cream Pie
Cherry Supreme Pie
Lemon Supreme Pie
Chocolate Sundae Pie
Old Fashioned Pecan Pie
Chocolate Chocolate Mousse Pie
Caramel Pecan Silk
Supreme Lemon Meringue Pie
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Pie
European Truffle Pie
Chocolate French Silk
Be still, my heart, be still...
When I read these names I feel like Pepe LeMoko reciting the names of the stations on the Paris metro...
[Later: Membership involves printing out the form, filling it out and snailmailing it in together with a check for 35 bucks!! Guess they don't need members so badly after all.]
Sunday, January 25, 2004
~~~~~~~
JINCHOGE RIFF
There at the heart of winter, there in the eye of ice
when life is at its low, one day in a beard-frosting blizzard your snowsquint eyes are drawn to the flashing color of reddening buds: jinchoge (Daphne odora), heart-scarlet in a world of white, swelling even into this cold. Thereafter each time you pass that small green bush your heart reaches out for more of that bright truth, offered to all with hearts that reach: the solace that no matter the cold, the warmth is coming; no matter the death, life is returning; no matter the ice, passion is rising; once-dimmed pulses are growing in strength, budding from the seed of cold. You share the tension of this becoming, you have a part in this passion play, unfolding in Spring since first there were eyes that led to the heart. Thus it is each morning as you go out into the cold, and each night as you return, you gain in warmth and hope from those tiny quiet flames, nascent bouquets of fragrance you can nearly perceive, until one dawn that very perfume is on the air, and like the season itself you are more than you were...
JINCHOGE RIFF
There at the heart of winter, there in the eye of ice
when life is at its low, one day in a beard-frosting blizzard your snowsquint eyes are drawn to the flashing color of reddening buds: jinchoge (Daphne odora), heart-scarlet in a world of white, swelling even into this cold. Thereafter each time you pass that small green bush your heart reaches out for more of that bright truth, offered to all with hearts that reach: the solace that no matter the cold, the warmth is coming; no matter the death, life is returning; no matter the ice, passion is rising; once-dimmed pulses are growing in strength, budding from the seed of cold. You share the tension of this becoming, you have a part in this passion play, unfolding in Spring since first there were eyes that led to the heart. Thus it is each morning as you go out into the cold, and each night as you return, you gain in warmth and hope from those tiny quiet flames, nascent bouquets of fragrance you can nearly perceive, until one dawn that very perfume is on the air, and like the season itself you are more than you were...
~~~~~~~
SOIL AND HEALTH LIBRARY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Health begins in the soil; Healing begins with hygiene; Liberty begins with freedom."
"This is a free public library about holistic agriculture, holistic health, self-sufficient living, and personal development. Most of the titles in this library are out of print. Some can be quite hard to find; many of these books are old enough to be public domain materials.
This website exists because one person, Steve Solomon, intensely believes that these titles, grasped as an inter-related whole, constitute a self-guided course of study or curriculum that connects agricultural methods to the consequent health of animals and humans, shows how to prevent and heal disease and increase longevity. The library also offers smaller collections about homestead-based lifestyles and about why globalized society is resistant to changing its food and health systems."
The Soil and Health Library is an excellent resource of public domain books and documents on homesteading, organic farming, healthy living: the roots of freedom. Via WeBoughtTheFarm.
SOIL AND HEALTH LIBRARY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Health begins in the soil; Healing begins with hygiene; Liberty begins with freedom."
"This is a free public library about holistic agriculture, holistic health, self-sufficient living, and personal development. Most of the titles in this library are out of print. Some can be quite hard to find; many of these books are old enough to be public domain materials.
This website exists because one person, Steve Solomon, intensely believes that these titles, grasped as an inter-related whole, constitute a self-guided course of study or curriculum that connects agricultural methods to the consequent health of animals and humans, shows how to prevent and heal disease and increase longevity. The library also offers smaller collections about homestead-based lifestyles and about why globalized society is resistant to changing its food and health systems."
The Soil and Health Library is an excellent resource of public domain books and documents on homesteading, organic farming, healthy living: the roots of freedom. Via WeBoughtTheFarm.
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Friday, January 23, 2004
~~~~~~~
A MESSAGE FROM ROBERT REDFORD
Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,
Over the next few weeks, President Bush and his congressional allies will try
once again to ram their disastrous energy bill through the U.S. Senate. They
fell only two votes short in November and they've vowed to make passage of the
bill their top priority now that Congress has returned from recess.
This bill may be the worst piece of legislation you and I will see in our
lifetimes. It would pick your pocket, despoil your natural heritage, endanger
your family's health and smother your hope for a more secure energy future. We
ignore this bill at our own peril.
Let me tell you our simple plan for thwarting this shameless attack on our
environment and pocketbooks. If millions of Americans each took one minute to
protest this bill, it would cause every senator who is tempted to vote for it
to think twice about doing so.
You can make this happen within the next few hours by doing two things:
First, go to http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp?src=RR0401
and send your two senators an email or fax, telling them to vote against this
pro-polluter energy bill. Then, forward my email to at least four of your
friends, family members or colleagues.
I am emailing this message to 500,000 BioGems Defenders and other NRDC
activists. If each one forwards this message to just four more people, we will
generate a national tidal wave of opposition before this day is over.
And that won't be a moment too soon. This disgraceful bill would pick our
pockets to hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the oil, coal
and nuclear industries. That's their long-awaited reward for making big-time
contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign. They profit while the rest of us pay
the price -- in tax dollars and environmental degradation.
This bill gives the energy giants a free pass to drill their way through our
last wild places, burn more dirty coal, build a new generation of risky nuclear
power plants and dramatically increase air pollution that would sicken the
vulnerable -- especially children and seniors -- for decades to come.
It would establish oil and gas development as the dominant use of our federal
public lands, open national parks to the construction of electricity
transmission lines, exempt polluters from core provisions of our clean air and
water laws and waive liability for the producers of the toxic gasoline additive
MTBE -- even though it has contaminated at least 1,500 public water supplies in
all 50 American states.
You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more backward-looking, wasteful and
self-defeating energy "plan" than this one. At a time when the federal deficit
is soaring and we're going to war in the Persian Gulf oilfields, the White
House wants to stick us with the tab for prolonging our destructive dependence
on fossil fuels, foreign oil and dangerous nuclear technology.
This is not a national energy policy. This is corporate welfare, pure and
simple. Estimates of the bill's corporate tax breaks range from $23 billion to
well over $100 billion with loan guarantees included. No surprise there. Big
energy companies cooked up this raid on the federal treasury during hundreds of
secret meetings with Vice President Cheney's energy task force and their allies
on Capitol Hill.
It's one thing to gouge taxpayers. But to claim this rip-off is in the national
interest, as the White House would have us believe, is a slap in the face to
every working American.
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of voters -- of both parties --
understand that we simply must reduce our out-of-control appetite for fossil
fuels if we ever are to secure energy independence. That means turning American
rooftops into the Persian Gulf of solar energy. It means producing cars that
get 40 miles per gallon. It means constructing efficient buildings that use
half the energy of the average American office without sacrificing comfort.
Making this transformation to a super-efficient, low-pollution economy would
save consumers upwards of a trillion dollars, spare our last wild places from
destruction, improve our health, slow global warming and reduce our dependence
on undemocratic regimes overseas. It's a no-brainer to anyone living outside
the White House.
But unless millions of Americans speak out right now, the enactment of the
president's energy bill will doom us to an apocalyptic future of blighted
wilderness, poisonous air pollution, devastating climate change and endless
wars over fossil fuels.
Please make your voice heard. Go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp?src=RR0401
and tell your senators to obey the will of the American people, *not* the
dictates of giant energy corporations! Call on Congress to create a sustainable
and affordable energy path.
And please be sure to forward this message to at least four other people.
Believe me, millions of Americans are just waiting for a simple way to stop
this madness and lend their support to a sane and hopeful energy future.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
Board of Trustees
Natural Resources Defense Council
. . .
BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org
A MESSAGE FROM ROBERT REDFORD
Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,
Over the next few weeks, President Bush and his congressional allies will try
once again to ram their disastrous energy bill through the U.S. Senate. They
fell only two votes short in November and they've vowed to make passage of the
bill their top priority now that Congress has returned from recess.
This bill may be the worst piece of legislation you and I will see in our
lifetimes. It would pick your pocket, despoil your natural heritage, endanger
your family's health and smother your hope for a more secure energy future. We
ignore this bill at our own peril.
Let me tell you our simple plan for thwarting this shameless attack on our
environment and pocketbooks. If millions of Americans each took one minute to
protest this bill, it would cause every senator who is tempted to vote for it
to think twice about doing so.
You can make this happen within the next few hours by doing two things:
First, go to http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp?src=RR0401
and send your two senators an email or fax, telling them to vote against this
pro-polluter energy bill. Then, forward my email to at least four of your
friends, family members or colleagues.
I am emailing this message to 500,000 BioGems Defenders and other NRDC
activists. If each one forwards this message to just four more people, we will
generate a national tidal wave of opposition before this day is over.
And that won't be a moment too soon. This disgraceful bill would pick our
pockets to hand out billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to the oil, coal
and nuclear industries. That's their long-awaited reward for making big-time
contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign. They profit while the rest of us pay
the price -- in tax dollars and environmental degradation.
This bill gives the energy giants a free pass to drill their way through our
last wild places, burn more dirty coal, build a new generation of risky nuclear
power plants and dramatically increase air pollution that would sicken the
vulnerable -- especially children and seniors -- for decades to come.
It would establish oil and gas development as the dominant use of our federal
public lands, open national parks to the construction of electricity
transmission lines, exempt polluters from core provisions of our clean air and
water laws and waive liability for the producers of the toxic gasoline additive
MTBE -- even though it has contaminated at least 1,500 public water supplies in
all 50 American states.
You'd be hard-pressed to come up with a more backward-looking, wasteful and
self-defeating energy "plan" than this one. At a time when the federal deficit
is soaring and we're going to war in the Persian Gulf oilfields, the White
House wants to stick us with the tab for prolonging our destructive dependence
on fossil fuels, foreign oil and dangerous nuclear technology.
This is not a national energy policy. This is corporate welfare, pure and
simple. Estimates of the bill's corporate tax breaks range from $23 billion to
well over $100 billion with loan guarantees included. No surprise there. Big
energy companies cooked up this raid on the federal treasury during hundreds of
secret meetings with Vice President Cheney's energy task force and their allies
on Capitol Hill.
It's one thing to gouge taxpayers. But to claim this rip-off is in the national
interest, as the White House would have us believe, is a slap in the face to
every working American.
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of voters -- of both parties --
understand that we simply must reduce our out-of-control appetite for fossil
fuels if we ever are to secure energy independence. That means turning American
rooftops into the Persian Gulf of solar energy. It means producing cars that
get 40 miles per gallon. It means constructing efficient buildings that use
half the energy of the average American office without sacrificing comfort.
Making this transformation to a super-efficient, low-pollution economy would
save consumers upwards of a trillion dollars, spare our last wild places from
destruction, improve our health, slow global warming and reduce our dependence
on undemocratic regimes overseas. It's a no-brainer to anyone living outside
the White House.
But unless millions of Americans speak out right now, the enactment of the
president's energy bill will doom us to an apocalyptic future of blighted
wilderness, poisonous air pollution, devastating climate change and endless
wars over fossil fuels.
Please make your voice heard. Go to
http://www.savebiogems.org/takeaction.asp?src=RR0401
and tell your senators to obey the will of the American people, *not* the
dictates of giant energy corporations! Call on Congress to create a sustainable
and affordable energy path.
And please be sure to forward this message to at least four other people.
Believe me, millions of Americans are just waiting for a simple way to stop
this madness and lend their support to a sane and hopeful energy future.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Redford
Board of Trustees
Natural Resources Defense Council
. . .
BioGems: Saving Endangered Wild Places
A project of the Natural Resources Defense Council
http://www.savebiogems.org
~~~~~~~
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SHAFT CAME FROM?
Even here in conservative Japan it's common practice for food shoppers to look for the origin label that tells them what country the item came from. The more knowledgeable among them can thereby avoid produce, grains etc. from countries that couldn't care less which foreigners get to eat their insecticide/herbicide/fungicide etc. administered during growth, post-harvest, or during shipment or packaging, since domestic laws don't apply abroad. Wise consumers around the world can thus avoid individual products for whatever reason, whether allergy, preference for general health, or boycott. True, many consumers (probably most) don't care, or think health comes from drugs, doctors and hospitals, but at least all have the choice if they want it. Not in the US, though. Such freedom of choice in food matters is now the norm in most developed countries, and would have been in the US as well, but when it comes to a choice between rich special interests and the general public, you know which side the Bush gang is on. Well, they've shafted the poor consumer again.
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SHAFT CAME FROM?
Even here in conservative Japan it's common practice for food shoppers to look for the origin label that tells them what country the item came from. The more knowledgeable among them can thereby avoid produce, grains etc. from countries that couldn't care less which foreigners get to eat their insecticide/herbicide/fungicide etc. administered during growth, post-harvest, or during shipment or packaging, since domestic laws don't apply abroad. Wise consumers around the world can thus avoid individual products for whatever reason, whether allergy, preference for general health, or boycott. True, many consumers (probably most) don't care, or think health comes from drugs, doctors and hospitals, but at least all have the choice if they want it. Not in the US, though. Such freedom of choice in food matters is now the norm in most developed countries, and would have been in the US as well, but when it comes to a choice between rich special interests and the general public, you know which side the Bush gang is on. Well, they've shafted the poor consumer again.
Thursday, January 22, 2004
VISION TALE
Talking with my upmountain neighbor the other day, he was out trimming snowbroken branches from the cedars and some from the oaks (the acorns do a day-and-night-drum-roll on his roof every autumn, something to think about if you're thinking of building near oaks) and I was out checking the shiitake for more buttons, getting some ginger (keeps real well when just left in the ground, I learned this year) and greens, and pondering a place for the bay tree, which is getting too big for its container, will have to be planted-- preferably soon-- when his and my paths converged near the tree line and he told me that the other morning he looked out his kitchen window at the back and there was a multipoint buck an arm's length away, eating acorns from the ground. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he ran for his video camera but when he got back the buck was gone. That's probably the same deerfellow that dined so crudely on my biwa tree.
I look out my windows all the time, seen monkeys, pheasants, ferrets, quail, mamushi, raccoons and rabbits, but I've never seen a deer. Or a bear or a wild pig, though they're around here too, and I'll probably see them all, sooner or later. But my neighbor, who has just moved here from the city, was way more excited by the encounter than the deer was, and now because he couldn't get his camera in time, when he visits his friends in the big urb he'll have to find the words to do the vision justice in telling them the story of his forest spirit, the same way such stories have always been told by seers vouchsafed visions, the tellers of tales to be remembered, for a million years before such stories led to us...
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
~~~~~~~~~
NATURAL EXERCISE
Doing the firewood-splitting extended meditation today I was feeling how good it feels to actually be physically involved, flame-for-flame as it were, in the heating of your own home, as opposed to working 40~50 hour weeks at a desk in an office to pay an oil truck to now and then come and dump a few thousand gallons of anciently gathered nonrenewable solar energy into a very expensive oil tank to run through a very expensive central heating system at prices that will soon be skyrocketing, as we slurp up the last of what the sun laid far down in the earth hundreds of millions of years ago.
I know in my body, with my muscles, the actual cost of the heat I get, the ergonomic cost of every kilocalorie. I know how much breakfast it takes and how much energy it takes (my own and the firewood's) to heat my house for an hour or a day, and what my own muscles have done and must do to make it so. That knowledge (physical, spiritual and mental) keeps me warm on several levels.
And by respecting and fostering the source, and doing my own best to minimize general waste (which this intimacy makes patent), I am fully and directly involved in maintaining a broader aspect of my life. Who drilled your oil/gas? Where? Off the coast of California? The Alaskan wilderness? Have you ever seen an abandoned oilfield? An oil drum dump? Soon your oil/gas may be coming from Yosemite, or Yellowstone, or following more unexplained wars in the Middle East.
In any case, oil/gas is energy borrowed from the past, and one day it will all run out. If we are still around despite our depredations, what will a bit of heat cost then? Best to keep our bodies in good shape, with natural exercise, so that our children can see the worth of it. For total fluidity of movement and use of every muscle while being pleasantly productive, nothing in a gym can touch gardening or firewooding, a couple of good natural workout routines.
NATURAL EXERCISE
Doing the firewood-splitting extended meditation today I was feeling how good it feels to actually be physically involved, flame-for-flame as it were, in the heating of your own home, as opposed to working 40~50 hour weeks at a desk in an office to pay an oil truck to now and then come and dump a few thousand gallons of anciently gathered nonrenewable solar energy into a very expensive oil tank to run through a very expensive central heating system at prices that will soon be skyrocketing, as we slurp up the last of what the sun laid far down in the earth hundreds of millions of years ago.
I know in my body, with my muscles, the actual cost of the heat I get, the ergonomic cost of every kilocalorie. I know how much breakfast it takes and how much energy it takes (my own and the firewood's) to heat my house for an hour or a day, and what my own muscles have done and must do to make it so. That knowledge (physical, spiritual and mental) keeps me warm on several levels.
And by respecting and fostering the source, and doing my own best to minimize general waste (which this intimacy makes patent), I am fully and directly involved in maintaining a broader aspect of my life. Who drilled your oil/gas? Where? Off the coast of California? The Alaskan wilderness? Have you ever seen an abandoned oilfield? An oil drum dump? Soon your oil/gas may be coming from Yosemite, or Yellowstone, or following more unexplained wars in the Middle East.
In any case, oil/gas is energy borrowed from the past, and one day it will all run out. If we are still around despite our depredations, what will a bit of heat cost then? Best to keep our bodies in good shape, with natural exercise, so that our children can see the worth of it. For total fluidity of movement and use of every muscle while being pleasantly productive, nothing in a gym can touch gardening or firewooding, a couple of good natural workout routines.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
~~~~~~~~~
KINDLINGS
A lot of people ask what kind of kindling I use to start my wood stove fires. On the way to what has turned out to be the best I've used just about everything, from the standard stuff (old newspapers, shredded cardboard) to twigs, pine cones and cedar bark. I don't use paper anymore, and not just because the news is so depressing: some of the metallic inks aren't good for the catalytic combustor in the stove I have (Vermont Castings' DutchWest Federal). Now I use pinecones we pick up along the beach (Kaya loves to do this, and with the new twins there should be no shortage of pine cones in the coming years), when I have them. Cedar bark (plenty of that around here) papered between the hands can also work ok, but can be very messy, so that's a last resort. Right now I use a handful of chainsaw sawdust (always put a tarp down and save chainsaw sawdust, when you can; some of the old-timers around here mix in a little kerosene to give the sawdust some octane as a firestarter, and it works very well, but the odor just ruins it for me) piled between two pieces of starter wood, then stacked atop that some shavings and splinters I take from a piece of old easy-shaving, easy-splintering and very dry board leftover from building the house (only need a couple feet of it per winter, and I have quite a few board feet left). I touch that off and then just add splinters as needed till the fire is going well (if more oomph is required, I add a splinter off a big chunk of fragrant cedar sapwood I have); then I stack a couple more starter pieces crosswise atop that, and the morning has begun.
KINDLINGS
A lot of people ask what kind of kindling I use to start my wood stove fires. On the way to what has turned out to be the best I've used just about everything, from the standard stuff (old newspapers, shredded cardboard) to twigs, pine cones and cedar bark. I don't use paper anymore, and not just because the news is so depressing: some of the metallic inks aren't good for the catalytic combustor in the stove I have (Vermont Castings' DutchWest Federal). Now I use pinecones we pick up along the beach (Kaya loves to do this, and with the new twins there should be no shortage of pine cones in the coming years), when I have them. Cedar bark (plenty of that around here) papered between the hands can also work ok, but can be very messy, so that's a last resort. Right now I use a handful of chainsaw sawdust (always put a tarp down and save chainsaw sawdust, when you can; some of the old-timers around here mix in a little kerosene to give the sawdust some octane as a firestarter, and it works very well, but the odor just ruins it for me) piled between two pieces of starter wood, then stacked atop that some shavings and splinters I take from a piece of old easy-shaving, easy-splintering and very dry board leftover from building the house (only need a couple feet of it per winter, and I have quite a few board feet left). I touch that off and then just add splinters as needed till the fire is going well (if more oomph is required, I add a splinter off a big chunk of fragrant cedar sapwood I have); then I stack a couple more starter pieces crosswise atop that, and the morning has begun.
Monday, January 19, 2004
~~~~~~~~~
A PHENOMENAL GRASP OF NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL...
(Thanks Ron, and for the superb book, too.)
A PHENOMENAL GRASP OF NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL...
(Thanks Ron, and for the superb book, too.)
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