Glass Abattoir

Checking In

2012-04-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I brought home the guitar that I put on layaway last month. We did borrow some money through our credit union to make the purchase because, as we have learned, having no debt is actually bad for your credit. (WTF?!?) Yes, it turns out that if you are not beholden to anyone the lenders don't like you. They also don't like it if you pay things off early because they don't make as much interest so, while we could pay off the small sum we borrowed in short order, we are going to make the minimum payments and drag it out for a full year to help reestablish our credit. Blood sucking bastards!

(A quick note on the guitar -- I have yet to take it to work, but I did do a small bit of recording with it and it blew me away. I do believe it will indeed be the last performance guitar I ever need!)

I had made a deal with the wife that, if I get another guitar (yes, I have a few, but they all do something unique. I am not a collector, each has it's utility), she gets to book a trip she's been wanting to take for some time to visit a friend overseas. Our original plan was to pay off the first loan, then take out a second for the trip, thus establishing credit. It turns out it doesn't work that way. After talking with our person at the credit union we have decided to drag the first loan out, save for the trip then take a out a second loan secured by the money we saved. Effectively, we are paying our credit union to help us show lenders that we are good little consumers (what a crazy system!). Hopefully by doing this, though, a farm will not be out of future reach!

I got my tracks back from the studio and the project I recorded almost 17 years ago is now in my studio program on my laptop. I have plans to meet with a co-producer for the redux to listen to them and make decisions about what to keep, what can be fixed, what to re-record, and anything else later this week. It's happening!

The move out of the old house is more-or-less complete. There is a small amount of uncut firewood, a garden cart, the compost pile (hell yes we're taking it with us!), and the pen in which we kept the chickens (which we thought could be converted into a temporary/moveable greenhouse, but we're not sure if we can carry it over in the pickup truck) still at the old place. All evidence suggests that our old landlords have defaulted on the property, so we don't feel a particular hurry to have it all removed by any deadline. We will be collecting it all soon -- we need to get a garden started here and we need that compost! Now we need to sort and organize the boxes of stuff here at the new house...

In sad news, we lost another chicken this week. Dumpling, one of our Ameraucanas, was acting like she was sneezing at first. Then she started opening her beak and stretching out her neck and I thought she maybe had something stuck in her craw. Then she began to cough up blood and we became very concerned. I tried to see if there was anything I could do but it soon became obvious that she wasn't going to make it. I ended up having to put her out of her misery. The whole thing was awful. My son and I patrolled the backyard the next day and hopefully removed anything that might be harmful. They are not the most selective when it comes to what they'll eat. I am guessing she found a piece of something she thought was food that was instead sharp and dangerous (I was surprised to find many things in the yard that matched that description).

The pantry is going to be much more user-friendly at this new place. I am looking forward not just to stocking it, but actually looking forward to USING it. That's going to be huge!

I still need to complete our taxes. The move really put a wrench in things there. Hopefully I can get that done over Easter weekend.

Lots on the plate. It's all about finding balance right now.

The True Cost of Gasoline

2012-03-27T18:50:00.000-07:00

Gas prices are high and I've been hearing a lot of bitching, boycott scheming, etc.

Personally, I'm all for paying the true cost of gas at the pump. Until American consumers start paying closer to the true cost we are going to continue to put off seriously seeking alternatives.

Update

2012-03-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy. Moving really makes one aware of just how many hobbies and activities one has. Each one takes it's own gear and I seem to have acquired a lot of it.

I think it's fair to say I have gotten back into homebrewing full-bore. I have not been able to establish and maintain a single day of the week as "Brew Day" with the hectic moving schedule, but I have managed to brew five batches so far and keep a couple of yeast packs going.

In my resolutions I mentioned an expensive guitar that I was hoping to acquire this year. The other day I got a call from a local music store to inform me that they had one of these rare guitars in. I have not been able to save enough money to buy it, but I did go play it, made a deal, and had enough to put it on layaway. Unbelievable. This will likely be the nicest instrument I ever own.

The garden is going to be a challenge. We will be starting from scratch at the new house and we're already behind. We do have a lot more space to organize things and having a garage really makes a huge difference for me! Since the backyard is fenced, we have given the chickens free reign of that space. We are talking about possibly getting new chicks this spring and increasing the flock.

In my resolutions I also talked about reworking an older recording project. Before I am able to do that I need to transfer the original tracks from their old, outdated format to a format I can work with. As I write this, the tapes are at a studio where (hopefully) they can do just that. Once that is done I will be able to load the tracks into my computer and then I have no excuses for not completing that project.

I have teamed up with a like-minded person and started a social network page with the goal of promoting public discussion of electing citizens over professional politicians. I have not been very involved with that as I have been busy with other things, but I am thrilled that something is happening!

I knew this year was going to be busy. I'm not sure I knew how time-consuming it was going to be. (heh)

Busy, busy, busy...

2012-02-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not getting any better at posting regularly here, am I?

Here's what's going on: I got the beer brewing kickstarted three weeks ago and have brewed a batch each week. I currently have three different batches at various stages of fermentation and will begin kegging and bottling next week.

One of our chickens died just last week. Like Ginger, we have no idea of the cause, but Omelet was found dead in the hen house last Saturday. Omelet was a Rhode Island Red, a good layer, and an entertaining bird. We are down to four chickens no, which, in hindsight, would probably have been plenty to supply our family of three with eggs the first couple years. Now the girls are slowing down. I doubt we will get new chicks this year, but probably one or two next year.

My career has also been keeping me busy. The company that I primarily work for is going through some changes (good things) and while I have not been directly involved in the majority of the work, it has occupied my time nonetheless.

A potential move has been the main focus of my time and energy. Are we moving onto a farm?!? While that would be great, that hasn't happened just yet. We have been presented with an opportunity to move into a house that would be a small step up from where we are now in many ways. Things like a garage to keep our VW bus and various other things that are currently rusting outside or cluttering up our utility room/pantry, more storage inside for things like backpacking gear and crafty stuff, and lower rent are all motivators. The deal is a little unconventional, so there were many details to consider, but we are at the point now where it is time to pack up and move.

I have had some other interesting developments in respect to this year's resolutions, but I will save that for another post. Right now, I need to pack.

Poor America

2012-02-22T02:12:00.000-08:00

How did we get here?

HST 2.20.2012

2012-02-20T23:32:00.002-08:00

Strange vibrations on this night in the year of our Lord 2012. Seven years. Seven years of quiet. Seven years without the proper insanity to balance the evil insanity that are the powers that be. Idiots. Bastards. Swine. You are gone and there will not be another like you. Fear and loathing in the new millennium. Where ever you are now, I hope you have rid yourself from the pain of being a man.
...and that you have the regular satisfaction of stomping Richard Milhous Nixon.

Rest in peace, Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005).

2012: Here We Go

2012-02-01T02:09:00.000-08:00

One side effect of this blog for me has been a realization of the power of words. One of my New Year's resolutions a few years back was to start a blog and so one of the early posts was about my resolution for the year. I had not been historically big on resolutions, but now I had a forum and needed to write. As I wrote resolutions that first year I seemed to feel I needed to fill content and went a bit beyond what I would have considered "realistic". Nothing like having goals, I figured. As the year passed I posted updates. At the end of the year I was shocked to find that almost all of my resolutions had come to pass, one way or another.

The next year I decided to push it a bit further to see what happened. Again, more happened than I would have expected.

Last year my wife and I decided to try it on something big: our debt. I made one resolution. I later amended it with some smaller things that I "would like" to have happen, but I was afraid to take anything from the focus of reducing our debt. As the year went on I did not accomplish a lot, but we started to realize that the pace we had set with paying down our debt could have us completely paid off "before Thanksgiving". We kept that mindset and, despite car repairs and an emergency room visit, we were completely debt-free by Thanksgiving.

I've decided this year to go for broke. I have a lot that I want to do this year and some of it is well beyond the scope of anything with which I have any real experience. Some of it just has to do with getting back on track after having only one primary focus last year. Let's get started:

As I write this we are just coming out of a winter storm that brought record snow and ice and shut things down for a couple days. It makes me realize just how easy it is to let things slide and not be ready in time when something does happen. This past year we have been so focused on saving money to pay bills, when I did get a twinge that we were low on this or that I told myself we would be able to get back on track once we're out of debt. With the exception of having to scramble for firewood, we made it through this storm with little difficulty. Fortunately it was only a few days and we only lost power for a short time one night (which is more than about 300,000 homes in the area can say). Still, we need to be better prepared. My first resolution is to get back on track with our emergency preparedness.

In line with that thought, I fully intend to continue gardening. The past couple years were disappointing in the garden. I would like to produce enough in the garden this year to have extra to can for winter. We did some canning this year, but the bulk of what we canned came from the local produce stand. I also want to can more this year -- meals like chili, soups, stews, and the like. Our pantry is well-stocked at the moment, especially considering the odd summer and fall we had. Again, though, I would like to get started canning earlier this year so we can put more away.

I also want to get back into a brewing routine this year. As we got serious about canning it seems my beer brewing slowed and halted. I have rebuilt my bottle supply (rough work, that) and intend to bottle as well as keg. In addition, I really want to start all-grain brewing. This will require an investment into some equipment, but not a lot as I already have everything I need for extract brewing. I have just acquired a mash tun in the past few days -- that was the biggest hurdle. I now only need a propane cooker, a recipe, and the ingredients to get started. I will also need a new bottle capper to started bottling as mine was passed on a while back. This has already begun.

I want to hunt deer and elk this year. It is my understanding that the bowhunting season for deer and elk overlap, so that is my plan. Mostly what I need to do this year is get out scouting a good hunting area. This past fall what really hurt my hunt was that the area I had scouted the season prior had been heavily logged and I failed to scout a better spot. It would be ideal to plan a camping trip before hunting season and really scout the area. Between the garden, canning, scouting, and hunting I need to expect my late summer and fall to be really busy.

On a completely different tangent, I have a set of professional goals for this year's resolutions. I have one recording project -- a sort of reworking of an older recording project -- that I want to complete. My intent is to use this project as a learning tool that will set me up for another recording project. The second project will require me to start songwriting again, which I have already, albeit slowly, begun. There is some music and recording equipment I wish to acquire this year for various reasons that include a guitar that is quite expensive, but it should be the last performance guitar I will ever need. I also want to focus on drumming and percussion this year and have already set my drums back up n my music room/office and been working on rudiments.

As long as I'm going for broke, I have two resolutions that are a bit out on a limb. First, my wife and I have been talking about owning a farm for several years now. Now that we are out of debt it seems we should stop talking about it and do it. I would like to own a farm this year.

Also, it seems America is ready for a change. The corporations and politicians in power seem intent on selling out We The People and our futures for their own interests. I was with the Tea Party movement until it was hijacked by the right wing. The left seems intent on trying to hijack the Occupy movement. At the end of the day, it seems We The People are ready for change, we just need to stop playing the game. The United States of America is not about democrats or republicans. It is about a government of, for, and by the people. It's time to take it back. I resolve to do everything I can to remind people of that fact an encourage all U.S. citizens to take back our country. By the end of 2012 it should be evident that a revolution has taken place in the United States.

If that's not enough, it is my intention to do all of this while maintaining my commitments to my wife, my son, homeschooling, and the balance of my own well-being. I also have a number of family-centric goals for this year that my wife and I have discussed (mostly things that involve more regular check-ups with doctors, dentists, and mechanics).

Considering that I am posting this as February has just set upon us, I'd say it's time to get to work.

Why SOPA is a Bad Idea

2012-01-18T14:12:00.000-08:00

Voting with Our Farms and Forks against Climate Catastrophe

2011-12-30T02:56:00.000-08:00

Voting with Our Farms and Forks against Climate Catastrophe

If we allow the infamous "one percent" to continue with business as usual, we will soon be arriving at civilization's last stop, climate hell. If we allow the U.S. and global fossil fuel/military industrial/corporate agribusiness economy to keep turning up the planet's delicately balanced thermostat, raising average global temperatures by two degrees Celsius or more, we will soon pass the point of no return, detonating runaway global warming. Among the catastrophic consequences of runaway global warming will be the release of a significant portion of the 1.7 trillion tons of deadly methane now sequestered in the shallow Arctic seabeds and permafrost (equivalent to twice the amount of total greenhouse gas pollution currently in the atmosphere). As the International Energy Agency warned on November 9, the world is accelerating toward irreversible climate change. We will lose the chance to avert catastrophic warming if we don't take bold action in the next five years to sharply reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; drastically increase energy efficiency in the food, transportation, utilities, and housing sectors; and safely sequester billions of tons of greenhouse gases in our soils, plants, and forests through organic soil management and permaculture practices. In other words we have approximately 1800 days left to avert catastrophe.

Voting with Our Farms and Forks against Climate Catastrophe

The End of the Consumerist Model

2011-11-25T14:12:00.000-08:00

The End of the Consumerist Model

"I am writing these reflections in the midst of economic and political debates taking place throughout the world about the necessity of implementing stimulus plans to limit the destructive effects of the First planetary economic crisis of the capitalist world."

The End of the Consumerist Model

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T03:23:00.000-08:00

(from Native Circle)

The Thanksgiving Myth
by John Two-Hawks

Let me begin by stating that thousands of years before the 'official'
Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed by Governor Winthrop of the
Massachussetts Bay Colony in 1637, North American Indigenous
people across the continent had celebrated seasons of Thanksgiving.
'Thanksgiving' is a very ancient concept to American Indian nations.
The big problem with the American Thanksgiving holiday is its false
association with American Indian people. The infamous 'Indians and
pilgrims' myth. It is good to celebrate Thanksgiving, to be thankful
for your blessings. It is not good to distort history, to falsely portray
the origin of this holiday and lie about the truth of its actual inception.
Here are some accurate historical facts about the true origin of this
American holiday that may interest you...

'Thanksgiving' did not begin as a great loving relationship between the
pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people. In fact,
in October of 1621 when the 'pilgrim' survivors of their first winter in
Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial 'Thanksgiving' meal,
the Indians who were there were not even invited! There was no turkey,
squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie. A few days before this alleged
feast took place, a company of 'pilgrims' led by Miles Standish actively
sought the head of a local Indian leader, and an 11 foot high wall was
erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of
keeping Indians out! Officially, the holiday we know as 'Thanksgiving'
actually came into existence in the year 1637. Governor Winthrop of the
Massachussetts Bay Colony proclaimed this first official day of Thanksgiving
and feasting to celebrate the return of the colony's men who had arrived
safely from what is now Mystic, Connecticut. They had gone there to
participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot men, women and children,
and Mr. Winthrop decided to dedicate an official day of thanksgiving
complete with a feast to 'give thanks' for their great 'victory'....

As hard as it may be to conceive, this is the actual origin of our current
Thanksgiving Day holiday. Many American Indian people these days do
not observe this holiday, for obvious reasons. I see nothing wrong with
gathering with family to give thanks to our Creator for our blessings and
sharing a meal. I do, however, hope that Americans as a whole will one
day acknowledge the true origin of this holiday, and remember the pain,
loss, and agony of the Indigenous people who suffered at the hands of
the so-called 'pilgrims'. It is my hope that children's plays about 'the
first Thanksgiving', complete with Indians and pilgrims chumming at
the dinner table, will someday be a thing of the past. Why perpetuate
a lie? Let us face the truths of the past, and give thanks that we are
learning to love one another for the rich human diversity we share.

(Written by John Two-Hawks)

Home-Made Tabasco!

2011-11-22T20:13:00.000-08:00

Back in June I posted about getting the food mill and making hot pepper sauce. Because we've been shopping at Costco quite a bit this year to cut expenses, the large bottle of Tabasco we had in the 'fridge lasted quite a while. I finally drained it the other night when we had burritos. I washed the bottle out and grabbed one of the pints from June and opened it, not knowing for sure if I would be filling the Tabasco bottle or pouring the jar down the drain.

Great news! It turned out really good! It's almost identical to Tabasco except for the color which is more of a darker red as opposed to bright red (probably because I didn't use the chemicals). To be completely honest, my preference would have been something more like Frank's Red Hot (which is why I was generous with the garlic), but I am very happy with the results! One pint filled the Tabasco with a significant amount leftover. That bottle lasted several months, so the five pints I made in June should keep us covered for a good, long time.

Now our pantry is stocked with home-made ketchup, mayonnaise, relish, salsa, and hot pepper sauce!

Next I need to learn to make mustard!

Resolutions Revisited

2011-11-22T02:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry to my loyal readers (all four of you) that I have not posted anything in a while. I've been busy with work, family, and the whole Occupy movement that I hope is a step toward real change on the horizon (I'd even be happy to admit that it began with the Tea Party movement (which really had more in common with the Occupy movement at it's genesis than you may think, but that's another post altogether...)).

I am posting today because today is a very special day. In January I posted my resolutions for the year, the primary of which was to pay down our debt. In a post titled 2011 Resolutions, I set some other general goals for the year, maintaining paying down our debt as the priority.

I am only mildly disappointed to say that I did not really make a lot of progress on most things this year. The summer was short and the garden did not do well. The weather also kept me from getting out to hike, run, or go backpacking nearly as much as I intended. My writing/music projects had to be shelved as my job changed dramatically in April, consuming my creative energies (though it turned out to not be a bad thing as I had expected). I was able to go on one elk hunting excursion, but did not do any other hunting this year. I did not brew any beer, learn cheese making or baking. I don't think I can ever spend enough time with my son.

I did get a little work done on our 1969 VW bus -- a late resolution that I do not believe I posted about -- but even that was modest progress at best. I also got a food mill after I learned that Coinstar will trade coins for Amazon.com certificates at no charge. The food mill has been great for processing food and canning!

I am only mildly disappointed by all of this because of what we did today.

Today we made the final payment on our last debt! The only thing we owe is our current rent, utilities, etc. We have severed all ties with every corporate bank and own our entire lives outright. For myself, personally, it is probably the first time since the mid-eighties that I can say that.

In January, when I said we were going to focus on paying down our debt this year I thought, "How great would it be to be out of debt by the end of the year?" Of course, I did not think it was realistic. As we cut our household budget and committed every dime we could spare to our highest interest debt first, and then the next one, and then the next one, at one point my wife and I started saying -- extremely optimistically but consistently -- "If we keep this up, we'll have everything paid off before Thanksgiving!"

Thanksgiving is three days away. We have paid off our debt. All of it.

As I sit here now writing this I can not express the sense of amazement that I have. Remember that saying about what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it? As a tone-deaf kid who knowingly committed to "a life of poverty and obscurity" at age 15, wanting to one day "make a living as a musician" and having done exactly that for the past decade, I am beginning to think there might be something to it.

From now on I'm dreaming BIG!

You?

Occupy Wall Street: It’s Not a Hippie Thing

2011-10-28T03:55:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street: It’s Not a Hippie Thing

For all its social snootiness, Wall Street has suffered far more from the meddling of members of its own class than from intrusions by those outside it. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt, an aristocrat, who held the lords of finance responsible for the Great Depression—securing legislation to establish the Securities and Exchange Commission, asserting federal authority over the stock exchange, and appointing a wealthy stock trader, Joseph Kennedy Sr., to ride herd. Not much better, from Wall Street’s perspective, was FDR’s Cousin Teddy, who as President prosecuted trusts as illegal monopolies. Or Louis Brandeis, a Harvard-trained corporate attorney turned crusader against the concentration of wealth and power.

These men changed the system from within, as have the ablest regulators in recent times. Arthur Levitt Jr., a vigorous SEC chairman under President Bill Clinton, was first the president of Shearson Hayden Stone. (Levitt is a member of the board of Bloomberg L.P., owner of Bloomberg Businessweek.) Paul A. Volcker cut his teeth at Chase Manhattan before running the Federal Reserve and becoming the gruff animating voice behind the Volcker Rule, which bans commercial banks from engaging in proprietary trading. It’s hard to imagine any of these “opponents” of Wall Street mounting a barricade. They didn’t need to storm the castle to know where the secrets were hidden.

In its very amateurism, Occupy Wall Street represents something new. Although it’s attracted some celebrities and well-heeled supporters, participants come chiefly from outside Wall Street. Many are unemployed or poorly employed. These are not bankers or reform-minded professors; these are also-rans in the capitalist race, upset with the system itself. Their chief weapon is neither eloquence nor argument, but their physical presence.

As critics have noted, the protesters are not in complete agreement with each other, but the overall message is reasonably coherent. They want more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, less profit (or no profit) for banks, lower compensation for bankers, and more strictures on banks with regard to negotiating consumer services such as mortgages and debit cards. They also want to reduce the influence that corporations—financial firms in particular—wield in politics, and they want a more populist set of government priorities: bailouts for student debtors and mortgage holders, not just for banks.

In its grassroots and leftist character, Occupy Wall Street bears a superficial resemblance to protests from the ’60s and early ’70s. But the Woodstock Era was different in ways that tell us important things about the current siege. Then, radical students preached an affinity with the “working class,” but it was rare that the students and any members of the working class actually joined arms...

There are now protests flourishing around the country, including my hometown. Occupy Boston is at the foot of the financial district in Dewey Square, which is given over to scores of closely packed, brightly colored camping tents. On the same day I toured the site, Ben S. Bernanke visited the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, right across the street, though no one on the square seemed to know it. Nor did Bernanke wander over.

The message in Boston is the same as in New York, but with a more desperate edge. Stan Malcolm told me he had been working in flooring—an industry hit hard by the real estate slump—until 18 months ago, when his employer shut down. “There ain’t no work anywhere,” he said. Since then he has been doing day labor and eating at soup kitchens. I asked what he will do when the cold weather comes. Wasting not a syllable, he replied: “Bundle up.”

Occupy Wall Street: It’s Not a Hippie Thing

PRICELE$$

2011-10-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Jensen Farms Packing Operation Fatally Flawed

2011-10-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

Jensen Farms Packing Operation Fatally Flawed

Industrial agriculture does it again!

"The nationwide outbreak of listeriosis, which has killed 25 people and sickened 98 others, is the first involving Listeria-contaminated whole cantaloupes."

Jensen Farms Packing Operation Fatally Flawed

Thoughts on American Capitalism

2011-10-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything here in a little while because I've been preoccupied with the Occupy Wall Street protest. Personally, I think it's high time Americans stood up and said, "We've had enough!" and I think it's great that the movement has gone global. Thomas Jefferson said, "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.", and, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the Atmosphere." What's happening now is a good thing.

I wanted to take some time today to offer some ideas on why this rebellion has risen up. I am in no way a spokesperson for any Occupy event/movement, so don't misunderstand, these are just the thoughts of one citizen.

I believe far too many Americans believe that we have a capitalist economy. Far too many Americans believe we have a democracy. Both of these are false and I believe that the misperceptions of these two things have helped politicians to polarize party lines.

The U.S. government was not founded as a democracy. The founding fathers did not trust the average citizen to not be taken in by a silver-tongued devil. Looking at the country and it's media today it could be argued that the founding fathers were ahead of their time. Democracies had been shown to be too chaotic to be sustainable so they set up a republic wherein we the people get to elect representatives to make decisions and run the country on our behalf. What that means for the average citizen is, if you are not satisfied with the way your representatives in government are running things, you need to communicate that to them and if they don't listen you need to elect someone who will. I know this is more work than most Americans want to do, but if you let the government run itself it will act in it's own best interest (as it has).

(The good news is that this is much easier to do today than it has been in the past! I would recommend going to Congress.org and signing up for updates on what your representatives are voting for and against. While you're at it look up some activist sites that concern themselves with things you care about and sign up with them. Many send out petitions and letters on key issues that you can sign and follow. Get your representatives' email addresses and phone numbers and contact them directly. Tell them what you want and ask for explanations if they don't do it. Keep them accountable!)

Capitalism. Look around. This is not what Adam Smith had in mind. Before anyone starts quoting The Wealth of Nations out of context let me just remind everyone that Smith first wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments -- his own personally favored work -- and The Wealth of Nations was intended to be considered as the next chapter to The Theory of Moral Sentiment, not as a stand-alone piece.

That said, do we really have a capitalist system where one person can build a business and thrive? In some cases, yes. In most cases, though, no and the odds are looking more and more like those on a lottery ticket. Assuming that one does have the resources and talent to build a business and make it successful, navigating through government regulations and personal and business litigation, that business will likely have to compete with one or more huge corporations that are likely deemed "too big to fail" by their board members in Washington D.C. The deck has been stacked and the game is not the same as it was in the late 1700's.

I recently read an argument that if you took someone from the "rich 1%" and took away everything, they would not complain that they couldn't find a job, they would make their own job and create more jobs in the process. I feel this is oversimplified and that if you put this imaginary person into similar circumstances as the average American (i.e. school loans, children, hospital bills, auto repairs, etc.) the story might vary. But let's assume it's absolutely true. Why should we be content with a system that rewards a single talent on the backs of those with other talents? I know some people who are very good at business. I know more people who have had businesses that either failed or never fully supported them. Most of the people I know are very good at things other than owning and operating a business. Why don't we reward the people who teach the next generation or farmers who create our food supply in the same way we reward someone who can find loopholes in the tax code, has a talent for stock speculation, or is willing to neglect their health and family for the almighty dollar? Isn't the person who drives a truck or the person who builds and maintains the road an important part of the distribution system on which many businesses are built?

The fact that our transportation and energy systems have not really changed all that much in the past one hundred years is an indicator of how we have all become complacent. The system is antiquated and it's high time for an update. Our country needs a reboot. Two hundred and some years ago when the U.S. was being established there were those who believed we should be a simple, agrarian society and not be too involved in the world's affairs. Others wanted something that looked more like England's empire. When decisions were made, guess who came to the table?

It's time for us all to show up to the table and make our voices heard.

Jon Stewart on Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

2011-10-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

From: http://nycga.cc/2011/09/30/declaration-of-the-occupation-of-new-york-city/

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
Posted on September 30, 2011 by NYCGA

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Bill Maher On Ending Abusive Relationships - With Your Bank

2011-10-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

Food And Climate Change

2011-10-03T18:26:00.000-07:00

This is an EXCELLENT article from Grain!!

Food and climate change: The forgotten link

GRAIN | 28 September 2011 | Against the grain

Food is a key driver of climate change. How our food gets produced and how it ends up on our tables accounts for around half of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. Chemical fertilizers, heavy machinery and other petroleum-dependant farm technologies contribute significantly. The impact of the food industry as a whole is even greater: destroying forests and savannahs to produce animal feed and generating climate-damaging waste through excess packaging, processing, refrigeration and the transport of food over long distances, despite leaving millions of people hungry.

A new food system could be a key driver of solutions to climate change. People around the world are involved in struggles to defend or create ways of growing and sharing food that are healthier for their communities and for the planet. If measures are taken to restructure agriculture and the larger food system around food sovereignty, small scale farming, agro-ecology and local markets, we could cut global emissions in half within a few decades. We don’t need carbon markets or techno-fixes. We need the right policies and programmes to dump the current industrial food system and create a sustainable, equitable and truly productive one instead.

Food and climate: piecing the puzzle together

Most studies put the contribution of agricultural emissions – the emissions produced on the farm - at somewhere between 11 and 15% of all global emissions.[1] What often goes unsaid, however, is that most of these emissions are generated by industrial farming practices that rely on chemical (nitrogen) fertilizers, heavy machinery run on petrol, and highly concentrated industrial livestock operations that pump out methane waste.

The figures for agriculture's contribution also often do not account for its role in land use changes and deforestation, which are responsible for nearly a fifth of global GHG emissions.[2] Worldwide, agriculture is pushing into savannas, wetlands, cerrados and forests, plowing under huge amounts of land. The expansion of the agricultural frontier is the dominant contributor to deforestation, accounting for between 70-90% of global deforestation.[3] This means that some 15-18% of global GHG emissions are produced by land-use change and deforestation caused by agriculture. And here too, the global food system and its industrial model of agriculture are the chief culprits. The main driver of this deforestation is the expansion of industrial plantations for the production of commodities such as soy, sugarcane, oilpalm, maize and rapeseed.

Since 1990, the area planted with these five commodity crops grew by 38%[4] though land planted to staple foods like rice and wheat declined.

Emissions from agriculture account for only a portion of the food system's overall contribution to climate change. Equally important is what happens from between the time food leaves the farm until it reaches our tables.

Food is the world's biggest economic sector, involving more transactions and employing more people by far than any other. These days food is prepared and distributed using enormous amounts of processing, packaging and transportation, all of which generateGHG emissions, although data on such emissions are hard to find. Studies looking at the EU conclude that about one quarter of overall transportation involves commercial food transport[5] The scattered figures on transportation available for other countries, such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, indicate that the percentage is even higher in non-industrialised countries, where food production and delivery accounts for 60-80% of the total energy - human plus animal plus fuel – used.”[6] With transportation accounting for 25% of global GHG emissions, we can use the EU data to conservatively estimate that the transport of food accounts for at least 6% of global GHG emissions. When it comes to processing and packaging, again the available data is mainly from the EU, where studies show that the processing and packaging of food accounts for between 10-11% of GHG emissions,[7] while refrigeration of food accounts for 3-4% [8]of total emissions and food retail another 2%.[9]

Playing it conservative with the EU figures and extrapolating from the scarce figures that exist for other countries, we can estimate that at least 5-6% of emissions are due to food transport, 8-10% due to food processing and packaging, around 1-2% due to refrigeration, and 1-2% due to retail. This gives us a total contribution of 15-20% of global emissions from these activities.

Not all of what the food system produces gets consumed. The industrial food system discards up to half of all the food that it produces, in its journey from farms to traders, to food processors, to stores and supermarkets. This is enough to feed the world’s hungry six times over.[10] A lot of this waste rots away on garbage heaps and landfills, producing substantial amounts of greenhouse gases. Different studies indicate that somewhere between 3.5 to 4.5 of global GHG emissions come from waste, and that over 90% of them come from materials originating in agriculture and their processing.[11] This means that the decomposition of organic waste originating in food and agriculture is responsible for 3-4% of global GHG emissions.

Add the above figures together, factor up the evidence, and there is a compelling case that the current global food system, propelled by an increasingly powerful transnational food industry, is responsible for around half of all human produced greenhouse gas emissions: anywhere between a low of 44% to a high of 57%. The graph below illustrates the conclusion:

Turning the food system upside down

Clearly, we will not get out of the climate crisis if the global food system is not urgently and dramatically transformed. The place to start is with the soil.

Food begins and ends with soil. It grows out of the soil and eventually goes back in it to enable more food to be produced. This is the very cycle of life. But in recent years humans have ignored this vital cycle. We have been taking from the soil without giving back.The industrialisation of agriculture, starting in Europe and North America, replicating later through the Green Revolution in other parts of the world, was based on the assumption that soil fertility could be maintained and increased through the use of chemical fertilisers. Little attention was paid to the importance of organic matter in the soil.

A wide range of scientific reports indicate that cultivated soils have lost from 30 to 75% of their organic matter during the 20th century, while soils under pastures and prairies have typically lost up to 50%. There is no doubt that these losses have provoked a serious deterioration of soil fertility and productivity, as well as contributing to worsening droughts and floods.

Taking as a basis some of the most conservative figures provided by scientific literature, the global accumulated loss of soil organic matter over the last century may be estimated to be between 150 to 200 billion tonnes.[12] Not all this organic matter ended up in the air as CO2, as significant amounts have been washed away by erosion and have been deposited in the bottom of rivers and oceans. However, it can be estimated that at least 200 to 300 billion tonnes of CO2 have been released to the atmosphere due to the global destruction of soil organic matter. In other words, 25 to 40% of the current excess of CO2 in the atmosphere comes from the destruction of soils and its organic matter.

There is some good news hidden in these devastating figures. The CO2 that we have sent into the atmosphere by depleting the world's soils can be put back into the soil. All that is required is a change of agricultural practices. We have to move away from practices that destroy organic matter to practices that build-up the organic matter in the soil.

We know this can be done. Farmers around the world have been engaging in these very practices for generations. GRAIN research has shown that, if the right policies and incentives were in place worldwide, soil organic matter contents could be restored to pre-industrial agriculture levels within a period of 50 years – which is roughly the same time frame that industrial agriculture took to reduce it.[13] The continuing use of these practices would allow the offset of between 24-30% of current global annual GHG emissions[14].

The new scenario would require a radical change in approach from the current industrial agriculture model. It would focus on the use of techniques such as diversified cropping systems, better integration between crop and animal production, increased incorporation of trees and wild vegetation, and so on. Such an increase in diversity would, in turn, increase the production potential, and the incorporation of organic matter would progressively improve soil fertility, creating virtuous cycles of higher productivity and higher availability of organic matter. The capacity of soil to hold water would increase, which would mean that excessive rainfall would lead to fewer, less intense floods and droughts. Soil erosion would become less of a problem. Soil acidity and alkalinity would fall progressively, reducing or eliminating the toxicity that has become a major problem in tropical and arid soils. Additionally, increased soil biological activity would protect plants against pests and diseases. Each one of these effects implies higher productivity and hence more organic matter available to soils, thus making possible, as the years go by, higher targets for soil organic matter incorporation. More food would be produced in the process.

To be able to do it, we would need to build on the skills and experience of the world's small farmers, rather than undermining them and forcing them off their lands, as is now the case.

A global shift towards an agriculture that builds up organic matter in the soil would also put us on a path to removing some of the other major sources of GHGs from the food system. There are three other mutually reinforcing shifts that need to take place in the food system to address its overall contribution to climate change: The first is a shift to local markets and shorter circuits of food distribution, which will cut back on transportation and the need for packaging, processing and refrigeration. The second is a reintegration of crop and animal production, to cut back on transportation, the use of chemical fertilisers and the production of methane and nitrous oxide emissions generated by intensive meat and dairy operations. And the third is the stopping of land clearing and deforestation, which will require genuine agrarian reform and a reversal of the expansion of monoculture plantations for the production of agrofuels and animal feed.

If the world gets serious about putting these four shifts into action, it is quite possible that we can cut global GHG emissions in half within a few decades and, in the process, go a long way towards resolving the other crises affecting the planet, such as poverty and hunger. There are no technical hurdles standing in the way-- the knowledge and skills are in the hands of the world's farmers and we can build on that. The only hurdles are political, and this is where we need to focus our efforts.

Notes
[1] The IPCC says 10-12%, the OECD says 14% and the WRI says 14.9%. See:
- IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change. Chapter 8: Agriculture, http://tinyurl.com/ms4mzb
- Wilfrid Legg and Hsin Huang. OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate, Climate change and agriculture, http://tinyurl.com/5u2hf8k
- WRI, World GHG Emissions Flow Chart, http://tinyurl.com/2fmebe
[2] See: WRI, World GHG Emissions Flow Chart, http://tinyurl.com/2fmebe And: IPCC. 2004. Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: 3.4.2 Consequences of Land-use Change. http://tinyurl.com/6lduxqy
[3] See FAO Advisory Committee on Paper and Wood Products – Forty ninth Session – Bakubung, South Africa, 10 June 2008; and M. Kanninen et al., "Do trees grow on Money? Forest Perspective 4, CIFOR, Jakarta, 2007.
[4] See: GRAIN, 'Global Agribusiness: two decades of plunder', in: Seedling, July 2010.
[5] see: Eurostat. From farm to fork - a statistical journey along the EU's food chain - Issue number 27/2011 http://tinyurl.com/656tchm and http://tinyurl.com/6k9jsc3
[6] FAO. Stephen Karekezi and Michael Lazarus, Future energy requirements for Africa’s agriculture. Chapters 2, 3, and 4. http://www.fao.org/docrep/V9766E/v9766e00.htm#Contents
[7] For EU, see: Viktoria BOLLA, Velina PENDOLOVSKA, Driving forces behind EU-27 greenhouse gas emissions over the decade 1999-2008. Statistics in focus 10/2011. http://tinyurl.com/6bhesog
[8] Tara Garnett and Tim Jackson, Food Climate Research Network, Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of SurreyFrost Bitten: an exploration of refrigeration dependence in the UK food chain and its implications for climate policywww.fcrn.org.uk/frcnPubs/publications/PDFs/Frostbitten%20paper.pdf
[9] S.A. Tassou, Y. Ge, A. Hadawey, D. Marriott. Energy consumption and conservation in food retailing. Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 147-156 AND Kumar Venkat. CleanMetrics Corp. The Climate Change Impact of US Food Waste
CleanMetrics Technical Brief. www.cleanmetrics.com/pages/ClimateChangeImpactofUSFoodWaste.pdf and Ioannis Bakas, Copenhagen Resource Institute (CRI). Food and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions. www.scp-knowledge.eu/sites/default/files/KU_Food_GHG_emissions.pdf
[10] Tristram Stuart, “Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal”, Penguin, 2009, http://tinyurl.com/m3dxc9
[11] Jean Bogner, et. al. Mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions from waste: conclusions and strategies from the IPCC. Fourth Assessment Report. Working Group III (Mitigation) http://wmr.sagepub.com/content/26/1/11.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
[12] Figures used for calculations were:
a) an average loss of 4,5- 6 kg of SOM/m2 of arable land and 2-3 kg of SOM/m2 of agricultural land under prairies and not cultivated
b) an average soil depth of 30 cm, with an average soil density of 1 gr/cm3
c) 5000 million ha of agricultural land worldwide; 1800 million ha of arable land, as stated by FAO
d) a ratio of 1,46 kg of CO2 for each kg of destroyed SOM
[13] See: 'Earth matters: tackling the climate crisis from the ground up'. In: Seedling October 2009. http://www.grain.org/e/735
[14] The conclusion is based on the assumption that organic matter incorporation would reach an annual global average rate of 3.5 to 5 tonnes per hectare of agricultural land. For more detailed calculations, see: GRAIN, 'Earth matters: tackling the climate crisis from the ground up'. In: Seedling October 2009, table 2.

[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE]

Americans or Corporations?

2011-09-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

Two Things

2011-09-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

First, this is an excellent article from the October 3rd edition of The Nation. The article is called The Food Movement: It's Power and Possibilities and was written by Frances Moore Lappe', author of the 1971 book, Diet For A Small Planet.

A couple highlights from the article, which covers issues concerning farm workers, land, seed, culture, and economics:

"Fueling the consolidation were three Supreme Court rulings since 1980—including one in 2002, with an opinion written by former Monsanto attorney Clarence Thomas—making it possible to patent life forms, including seeds. And in 1992 the Food and Drug Administration released its policy on genetically modified organisms, claiming that 'the agency is not aware of any information showing that [GMO] foods…differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.'

"The government’s green light fueled the rapid spread of GMOs and monopolies—so now most US corn and soybeans are GMO, with genes patented largely by one company: Monsanto. The FDA position helped make GMOs’ spread so invisible that most Americans still don’t believe they’ve ever eaten them—even though the grocery industry says they could be in 75 percent of processed food.

"Even fewer Americans are aware that in 1999 attorney Steven Druker reported that in 40,000 pages of FDA files secured via a lawsuit, he found 'memorandum after memorandum contain[ing] warnings about the unique hazards of genetically engineered food,' including the possibility that they could contain 'unexpected toxins, carcinogens or allergens.'

"Yet at the same time, public education campaigns have succeeded in confining almost 80 percent of GMO planting to just three countries: the United States, Brazil and Argentina. In more than two dozen countries and in the European Union they’ve helped pass mandatory GMO labeling. Even China requires it."

...and...

"In all these ways and more, the global food movement challenges a failing frame: one that defines successful agriculture and the solution to hunger as better technologies increasing yields of specific crops. This is typically called 'industrial agriculture,' but a better description might be 'productivist,' because it fixates on production, or 'reductivist,' because it narrows our focus to a single element.

"Its near obsession with the yield of a monoculture is anti-ecological. It not only pollutes, diminishes and disrupts nature; it misses ecology’s first lesson: relationships. Productivism isolates agriculture from its relational context—from its culture.

"In 2008 a singular report helped crack the productivist frame. This report, 'The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development' (known simply as IAASTD), explained that solutions to poverty, hunger and the climate crisis require agriculture that promotes producers’ livelihoods, knowledge, resiliency, health and equitable gender relations, while enriching the natural environment and helping to balance the carbon cycle. Painstakingly developed over four years by 400 experts, the report has gained the support of more than fifty-nine governments, and even productivist strongholds like the World Bank."

I recommend reading the article. It contains a lot of good information and some hope.

Also, I came across this documentary, Back to Eden. There's a lot of Christian religion in it which is a topic for a different forum, but the premise of food production in harmony with nature is one I really get behind. The film is an hour forty six minutes and you can watch it right at the link above.

There are exciting things to talk about regarding the garden, resolutions, and such. Right now I'm busy with harvest-canning-hunting season. Hopefully I will find time to post something soon!

What if Solar Energy Received The Same Subsidies as Fossil Fuels?

2011-09-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

I copied this directly from Roger Ebert's Journal on the Sun Times website. All credit goes to him and his sources, but I could not resist sharing this.

It's just that good:

What if solar energy received the same subsidies as fossil fuels?

[ GO TO ROGER EBERT'S POST HERE ]

GMO Labeling

2011-09-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

This article came out yesterday on Western Farm Press's website. It amazes me how it makes the argument of why we need genetically modified labeling and just how far gone our food system really is. I don't see a reasonable argument anywhere in the article that we shouldn't have labeling so we can know whether our food is natural or not. The idea that we need to do these things to feed starving people would have some weight if we were actually feeding starving people, but the fact is we are not. As I have said before, we have plenty of food and the means to transport it all over the world, the only thing we need to feed hungry people is the will to do it.

The message I get from this article is exactly what I have been saying: We desperately need a food system that is more concerned with health and ecology than money. As long as money is the top priority, big-business will continue to manipulate our food supply at the expense of our heath, the health and well-being of farm animals, and the planet.

Here's the article:

Time to take on anti-biotech crowd over GMO labeling
by Harry Cline

The California anti-biotech/anti-genetically modified/anti-science crowd is at it again.
This time around they are calling themselves “advocates for truth in food labeling” and are gathering signatures to get another infamous California voter initiative on the 2012 California electoral ballot. If passed, it would mandate that GMO foods be labeled with some kind of warning.

Bring it on.

It is about time this GMO labeling issue be tackled head-on so the public can be told the truth. Truth is, everything we eat today has been genetically modified, using either conventional plant and animal breeding or biotech technology.

For example, a team of scientists at the University of California has identified no less than 14 so-called genetically modified feedstuffs that are fed to dairy cattle. These are just the biotech products. Of course conventionally genetically modified feedstuff is also fed to milk-producing dairy cows.

These include Roundup Ready corn, Bt grain and silage corn as well as distillers grain; Roundup Ready soybeans, Roundup Ready cottonseed, Bt cottonseed, Roundup Ready alfalfa, Roundup Ready canola, BST used to increase milk production, genetically-engineered Renet used in 90 percent of commercial cheese production, Roundup Ready sugar beets, glufosinate-resistant corn grain and silage, glufosinate-resistant cotton, glufosinate-resistant canola and imidazalione-tolerant corn.

Not all dairy cows are fed this complete list, but enough to dare say if you buy milk in California, it will have to be labeled GMO under the hopefully ill-fated initiative. I suspect organic milk has some of the same ingredients since the overwhelming majority of corn, cotton and soybeans are biotech crops. If not, it would most certainly be conventionally genetically modified.

Of course a lot of those feeds are also fed to poultry and beef cattle.

And we could go on and on, right into the heart of the organic/anti biotech movement - the notorious Organic Trade Association - where one of its board members is a vice president and general manager of Smuckers Natural Foods. Smuckers uses high fructose corn syrup and other GMO ingredients in various jams and jellies. There are other food producing companies represented on the OTA board that also sell biotech foods.

The absurdity of this anti-biotech movement becomes more apparent each day as people realize that the world needs increasingly more food to head off starvation by millions. The most logical way to meet this challenge is with scientific advancement, including biotechnology.

The cost of food continues to go up with the growing scarcity of products as the world competes for food. The public is growing more aware of this each day.

It is time agriculture and food processors take on this anti-biotech crowd straight out with the facts and put a stop to this mandatory GMO labeling nonsense. It is time consumers are told the truth and put this anti-biotech initiative in the same category as the ludicrous anti-circumcision ban initiative a bunch of amazingly arrogant whackos in San Francisco tried to get on a city election ballot. A superior court recently tossed the initiative off the ballot, even though enough signatures were collected to put it on a San Francisco city election ballot. Even the ACLU supported its removal from the ballot because it violated constitutional and religious freedoms.

The mandatory GMO labeling proposal is going nowhere in Washington. Maybe it is time to bury it in California. It would be expensive to defeat. However, the time is right to stop this nonsense where it all started, in California.

[READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE]