Kobiashi Maru

The Bricks of Oz

2012-01-23T16:26:00.002-05:00

L . Frank Baum was born in 1856 in Chittenango, NY. Inspired by his lush natural surroundings, Baum became a writer who would throughout his life pen 59 novels, 82 short stories, more than 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings. But most famous of all Baum's works was his 1900 novel, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” which would, of course, in 1939 inspire the MGM classic, The Wizard of Oz.

The folks of Chittenango never forgot Mr. Baum or his legacy; and proclaimed Chittenango the “birthplace of Oz.” Since the movie's release, an annual Oz-Stravaganza celebrates Baum's greatest work and has in the past featured most of the cast who performed in The Wizard of Oz movie. To increase the authenticity, folks in the town decided to take out the sidewalks and replace the concrete with Z-shaped golden bricks. That “yellow-brick road” for years welcomed dancing and singing munchkins, Tin Mans, Scarecrows, and Dorothys to town each June.

After a number of years, the Upstate New York winters made these bricks a maintenance problem. They were removed and stored behind the Chittenango Waste Water Treatment Plant.

In 2010, Walter Dutcher and John “Sunny” Sundbeck of Turn Key Controls, Inc. in Rochester were doing some controls work at this plant, noticed the bricks, and found out the story behind them.

Sunny is a long-time friend of Mark Cassara, a director at Oz Saferooms, Inc., a company that creates single-cement-pour shelters that can withstand up to Category 5 tornadoes. Sunny thought the company might be interested in purchasing these for their historic value and could perhaps use them in the saferooms that are manufactured at the Oz plant in Oklahoma.

The idea took. Oz Saferooms, Inc. purchased all 108,000 bricks and moved them to Oklahoma. There is now one-quarter of an Oz brick cast into the wall of every saferoom built: the same bricks that the real Tin Man, Lion, and Munchkins danced on in the Village that calls itself OZ. More than five million of those saferooms have been pre-ordered for every Home Depot in regions of the United States hardest hit by tornadoes.

When the last brick was counted and loaded, Chittenango's mayor Ronny Gohler was asked how hard a job it was. He said “I wore out four pairs of work gloves, and I am now the fastest brick-moving mayor in the World.”

All the bricks were relocated to Oklahoma, that is, except for the few Sunny and Walter kept for themselves. The men brought some of these remaining bricks to their summer cottages on Butterfield Lake in Redwood, N.Y., where the bricks sat piled up outside to enjoy their newfound anonymity amidst lovely North Country summers and bitter-cold winters.

Sunny would eventually in 2011 regale me with this story while sipping Woodford Manhattans in the Redwood Tavern. And then, last week, Sunny stopped in to see me. As I looked up at him and said hello, he extended his hand and laid a single, yellow brick on the counter. A brick touched and danced on by virtually all the characters of Wizard of Oz except Judy Garland herself. A brick inlayed in a small town called Chittenango, whose siblings are being cast as we speak into safety shelters that will scoff at Category 5 tornadoes and refuse to be blown away to Oz. One sits on the floor in front of my car's passenger seat as I cruise around the North Country, and I fantasize about casting this unusual item this spring into the floor of the Art Barn at Better Farm. A bit of magic, right here in Redwood.

We are all connected.

Redwood Happenings: Jan. 11, 2012

2012-01-11T16:16:00.004-05:00

Originally published in the Thousand Islands Sun

Full body text:

Redwood Happenings
Nicole Caldwell
482-2536
nicole.caldwell@betterfarm.org

Todmorden, a small mill town in England, has figured out a way to feed its residents without relying on the government—or supermarket. The 15,000-person community took the initiative and built 70 raised beds throughout town, then grew as many different vegetables and herbs as they could fit. A small volunteer group called “Incredible Edible” then contacted public entities such as the fire and railway stations about using public land for planting additional crops.

Every school in Todmorden is now involved in growing, too; and several orchards have also been installed in the town. The food that grows is managed by volunteers; and any resident or visitor is welcome to stroll through Todmorden and pick to his or her heart's content.

If this is possible on a scale of 15,000, shouldn't it be extremely manageable for a community as small as Redwood? We've already got seven raised beds throughout the hamlet; and the Redwood Neighborhood Association, in conjunction with Hearts for Youth, will be installing a greenhouse next to the pavilion this spring. These strides bring us another step closer to self-sufficiency; and leaps and bounds closer to good health from locally produced, organic food.

And although it's still winter, pre-orders are going on now for flowering crabapple trees to plant in your front yards. The tree sales are part of an effort to beautify downtown Redwood. Several dozen trees have already been purchased, and many of those planted. If you drive along Route 37 and side streets, you'll see the young trees as they make their ways through their first winter in Redwood. If you'd like more information, get in touch with me and I'll point you in the right direction.

But let's not lose sight of the season we're in! It's finally starting to feel like winter; and with it we've got the first annual Mud Lake Classic Fishing Tournament from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday. Licensed fishermen from the Redwood area are invited to participate in a friendly catch-and-release tournament on Mud Lake. Registration is $10, with part of the proceeds benefiting betterArts (www.betterarts.org) and its efforts to increase access to arts and music in Jefferson County. A cash prize will be rewarded to the individual who catches and releases the most pike.

To register, e-mail info@betterarts.org or stop in at the Redwood Tavern. Day-of registration is also available. See you out there!

Until next time, better be.

Nicole Caldwell is a writer and editor based out of Redwood. She also owns and operates Better Farm, a community outreach center and sustainability education space. Learn more at www.betterfarm.org.

Redwood Happenings: Jan. 4, 2012

2012-01-06T11:32:00.002-05:00

Originally Published in the Thousand Islands Sun

Why ‘Manscaping’ Isn't Just for Porn Stars Anymore

2011-12-29T10:49:00.001-05:00

By Lizzie Crocker for the Daily Beast

The Atlantic recently reported that female pubic hair is on the fast track to extinction. But grooming experts say the latest hair-removal trend isn’t targeted at women. Lizzie Crocker on the ‘manscaping’ boom...

In ancient times, removing male pubic hair had less to do with aesthetics. Egyptians did it to stave off fleas and lice. Romans removed adolescent boys’ body hair as an initiation into adulthood. In the 16th century, Europeans were aghast when Michelangelo’s statue of David featured a sculpted tuft above his penis; they thought it looked ungodly. The modern manscaped man is a product of today’s post-mextrosexual society, where even the alpha male indulges in spa treatments and $50 Diesel boxer briefs.

“Part of it has to do with shared roles,” says Nicole Caldwell, the editor of Playgirl, who has seen such a steep decline in male pubic hair recently that she has to remind her models not to shave everything off. “I don’t want to say there’s no distinction between men and women, but it’s more acceptable for them to share a space. Guys can occupy salons and it’s not totally bizarre.”

[Read the full article here.]

Interview with WWNY 7 TV

2011-11-21T08:24:00.000-05:00

(Click on image to start video.)

By Caitlin Cissne

Originally published at wwnytv.com

Story Published: Nov 19, 2011 at 8:10 PM EST

Since leaving behind a hectic life in New York City for a farm house in Redwood and the 65 acres that came with it, Nicole Caldwell's motto is this: "Whatever happens, it's always an opportunity to grow and to learn from the experience. You can sort of transform the world by how you perceive it and look at it," says Caldwell, the executive director of Better Farm.

Caldwell inherited the land, and the motto, from her uncle two years ago and created Better Farm, a space where artists live together in a sustainable, productive way.

It was quiet when 7 News visited Better Farm on Saturday morning, but typically, that means volunteering, creating organic gardens, and coming up with creative ways to be more green.
It also means bringing on interns from as far away as Kenya and Singapore. Maylisa Daniels is an intern from California.

"I've learned a lot so far. Just from their conversations, for the first two weeks I was here I didn't really talk. I was just like, "whoa." Just the conversations are so much different," says Daniels.

The group's latest project is an “Art Barn,” where Caldwell says free art and music workshops will be available to the community she now calls home.

Caldwell says she's a long way away from her life in New York City and she's now in the North Country to stay.

"Right now feel like my entire life, 24 hours a day, has a purpose. That feels really, really good," says Caldwell.

The Source

2011-10-21T21:16:00.000-04:00

This is the place where I first fell in love.

Where my heart slid into my stomach; where my fingers shook and my breath caught and I felt embarrassed before I said anything.

Where the bottle twirled and the moon sang and the trees bent and the water lapped against the shore and I first knew what this felt like. When you asked me if I was ready for this; when you called me shy and wondered if this was real; when you inched your fingers along my leg one song at a time while the CD replayed itself over and over again.

This is the beginning, before there were secrets. When I didn't have doubt. When everything was possible and only infinity stretched out ahead of us. When my body felt new and untouched; like you were the first to discover me, and this, and us, and I wondered what kind of person I would have been if I had never found you.

This is when I trusted you, and I promised you, and knew that this was it, there would be no other loves beyond this love, beyond you, beyond us. This is when I was sure you would be the one to draw that unnameable kind of love out of me. This is when I believed you would reach further than anyone ever had, to this private untapped place that's never been touched. This is when I believed you were strong, and you were brave, and you would stop at nothing to be the biggest version of yourself; the full, large, open person I would follow anywhere.

This is the time I believed your words over all other words; your expression over all other expressions; chose your kisses over all other kisses; reflected myself through your eyes over all other eyes.

This is the beginning; the Once Upon a Time. This is me before you; this is where it all begins. Over and over again.

Watertown Daily Times Profiles Award-Winners

2011-10-19T10:03:00.000-04:00

Jaycees to give three Young Professional awards on ThursdayFrom Watertown Daily Times, Oct. 19, 2011

By NANCY MADSEN
TIMES STAFF WRITER

Nicole Caldwell, Jason F. White and Kelli J. Thesier have different careers and north country experiences, but the three all will receive Young Professionals Awards from the Greater Watertown Jaycees on Thursday.

“All three of them were very active in their careers and professions, but were also really active in their communities,” said Janelle G. Bossuot, a Jaycees member who was on the selection committee. “These are the next generation, being groomed to be leaders for tomorrow, so I think it’s important to recognize them and award them for their achievements so far.”

The awards will be given at a noon luncheon Thursday at Ramada Inn, Route 3. Kenneth J. Eysaman, editor of NNY Business, will speak. Tickets are $20 and registration is by email through jbossuot@shsny.com.

Ms. Caldwell is executive director of Better Farms LLC and betterArts, an organic farm and a nonprofit to increase access to arts for people through artist residence programs, gallery openings and workshops.The New Jersey native moved to the north country after her uncle left his house and land in Redwood to her.

“He started a commune here in 1970, so the people in Redwood still call it the old hippie farm,” Ms. Caldwell said. “The farm overall has the goal to merge the creative spirit and live closer to the earth.”

She began her “huge labor of love and grand experiment” in summer 2009 and saw its programs blossom through this past summer, including college internships for those working on the organic farming aspect and resident artists, who created art for gallery openings and also worked on the farm. A barn renovation was recently finished and betterArts is raising money to offer free workshops and private music and art lessons there, in addition to gallery openings.

Dr. White, a physician with Internal Medicine of NNY, was selected based on his leadership and volunteer work in the community.

He is a native of Watertown who graduated from Watertown High School, Cornell University, Ithaca and Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, and returned to Watertown after completing his residency in Pennsylvania.

“I wanted to come back and make a difference,” he said. “I like the people here and I wanted to raise my family here.”

In addition to professional membership in the Jefferson Physician Organization’s Rewarding Physician Excellence Clinical Committee, Dr. White is active in many downtown revitalization organizations. He is a board member of Neighbors of Watertown Inc., and active in Tree Watertown, Advantage

Watertown and the Black River Committee for Advantage Watertown and the city.
“I think the history of the city was kind of rich in its heyday and I think that a lot of people want to improve the downtown and the core of the city,” he said. “I think there’s kind of a silent majority and we need more leaders who show they care and are willing to spearhead getting involved in those activities.”

He is also a 2006 graduate of Jefferson Leadership Institute.

Ms. Thesier, a chiropractor, owns and operates Carthage Family Chiropractic Care. She is a Carthage native and graduated from Carthage Central High School.
“It’s been my goal since I decided what I wanted to do that I should go to college, become a chiropractor and come back home,” she said. “This is where I was born and raised; I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

She bought the business three years ago. Her business was nominated for the 2010 New Business Venture Award through the Jefferson County Job Development Corporation and was a recipient of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Excellence in Small Business Award in 2009.

“In this type of small business, the most rewarding thing is helping people,” Ms. Thesier said. “Being in a service industry, that’s why I did it.”

Article originally appeared on the Watertown Daily Times website.

2011 Young Professionals Award Winners Announced

2011-10-11T14:44:00.001-04:00

By Holly Boname

for MyABC50.com

The Greater Watertown Jaycees, in partnership with the Jefferson-Lewis Workforce Investment Board and the Jefferson County Job Development Corporation, have announced the recipients of the 2011 Young Professionals Awards.

This year’s recipients are Dr. Kelli J. Thesier, Ms. Nicole Caldwell, and Dr. Jason F. White.

Dr. Kelli J. Thesier, owner of Carthage Family Chiropractic Care, was selected for her outstanding leadership in business. Dr. Thesier has owned and operated Carthage Family Chiropractic Care for the past three years and was nominated by Ms. Crystal Loomis, Carthage Family Chiropractic Care.

Ms. Loomis noted that, “Dr. Thesier has made positive impacts on her personnel, clientele, colleagues and peers through her sense of business, personality and leadership skills.” Dr. Thesier is a former President of the Carthage Lions Club and was the recipient of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Excellence in Small Business Award.

Ms. Nicole Caldwell, Executive Director of Better Farm, LLC, was selected for her outstanding leadership in arts and culture. Ms. Caldwell is a professional writer, editor and photographer. Better Farm, founded in 2009, is a non-profit sustainability education center and artists’ retreat in Redwood.

Ms. Caldwell was nominated by Ms. Kari Robertson, North Country Arts Council, because, “she is a pioneer, building a model for a world that empowers and connects community; that faces contemporary issues with a creative and intelligent approach.”

Dr. Jason F. White, Internal Medicine of NNY, was selected for his outstanding leadership and volunteer work in his community. Dr. White serves on the board of directors for Neighbors of Watertown, and is actively involved with Tree Watertown, Advantage Watertown, and the Black River Committee of the City of Watertown, having served in leadership roles for these groups. Professionally, he is chair of the Jefferson Physician Organization’s Rewarding Physician Excellence Clinical Committee.

Dr. White was nominated by Ms. Lorraine Clement, Jefferson Physician Organization, LLC, noting, “Dr. White’s positive attitude and the excitement he brings to each of the people he touches is inspiring.”

The Young Professionals Awards were created by the Greater Watertown Jaycees in 2007 to recognize our areas leaders under the age of 40.

Recipients will be honored at a luncheon on Thursday, October 20, noon, at the Ramada Inn. The guest speaker is Mr. Kenneth J. Eysaman, NNY Business Journal. Tickets are $20 and you can register by contacting jbossuot@shsny.com.

Stay tuned to MyABC50.com for coverage of the event and to hear from recipients.

My Lecture at Moving Planet's International Day of Action

2011-09-26T14:55:00.003-04:00

For more information about the day's events, click here.

A sustainable act is one you can repeat forever in the same way. That’s it. For all the attention sustainability gets nowadays, the concept itself is so simple, it’s amazing the practice eludes even our most educated politicians and world leaders.

Sustainability is literally the act of lending oneself to infinity.

Every microbe, bacteria, atom, and animal on earth has this system down pat. Every animal, that is, except for one.

Think of every system you participate in on a daily basis: from waking up to your alarm clock that's plugged into the wall, brushing your teeth and showering with water from a treatment plant that goes down the drain into sewers, showering with chemical-riddled soaps peppered with dyes and perfumes and additives. Think of the clothes you dress yourself in and the manner in which they were created, shipped, packaged, and sold to you. Think of the processed food you eat for breakfast and where your coffee beans came from. Consider your morning commute. Don't stop there. Consider the way homes, neighborhoods, states, and countries are run. Think of big business, industry, oil, and gas. Think of your churches and synagogues, and the energy they use to run their lights, their heating, their central air. The truth is, very few—if any—actions undertaken by any one of us in a day are truly sustainable. Which is to say, the way we act and live is linear instead of circular. We start with consumption and end with a pile of toxic, non-decomposing garbage, dirty unlivable water, and unbreathable air.

The way we eat isn’t sustainable. The way we handle our waste isn’t sustainable. The way we get to and from work, build our homes, make our jewelry, wash our bodies, and even the rate at which we reproduce are all done unsustainably. What does this mean? It means the stuff we eat, the fuels we use, the clean air we breathe, the fresh water we drink... will eventually run out. There are just too many of us using, eating, breathing, and taking out of the system without putting enough back in for the relationship to go any other way. I don’t know how long things can continue. A year? A hundred years? A thousand? But there is no question we will run out of the basic resources required to support a population of our size, in the way we consume now. It will end.
Read more here.

Ancient villages and indigenous groups the world over survived because they maintained small numbers, took only what they needed, and gave back in a way that speaks to a “natural order of things”. Groups of people were so small that dealing with waste, for example, was as simple an act as its result, which was to strengthen forests and ecosystems. It was circular living instead of linear.

There were no planes flying over miles of corn, dropping poisonous fertilizers onto biological material we would eventually eat and put put back into the earth. There were no landfills catching on fire because of so many toxic gases being released in the process of decomposition. There were no islands of plastic bobbing around in the oceans. There were no factory farms.

These days, we even embalm our dead with horrible chemicals like formaldehyde. Then we dip these otherwise perfectly good, biodegradable bodies into the soil. Death is our last opportunity to give back to the earth in the most literal, basic way, and we ruin it. Dying has instead become humans' final, and perhaps most insulting offering to the earth.

We see raging debates now over natural resources because we’re running out of them. Nobody’s making any more land, or a bigger ocean, or a fresh mountain range. So now we go to war over natural resources like oil. But once we extract all the oil, we can’t keep getting it because it takes hundreds of thousands of years for oil to become oil in the first place. Yes, we can drill here in the United States. And that will create x amount of jobs and provide, say, a hundred years’ worth of oil. Uh... and then what? Then where will we go? How long until we go to war to control the fresh water supply? And then, as we continue polluting, when will that run out?

We will run out of oil. We will run out of fresh water. We will run out of trees, clean air, and fertile ground, and all the most basic needs we have as living, breathing animals. We forget these most fundamental needs in the face of politics, and getting ahead, and the bottom line, and pretty houses in the suburbs and having a nicer lawn than our neighbors’ and cool new cars, and sweet clothes, and the most amazing new sneakers, and, and...

And we’re literally killing ourselves. This is so tragic, and so negative, and so extremist to say. But it’s also so true.

Because to be sustainable; in fact, to lend yourself to infinity, the actions you take have to be done in ways that they could be repeated over and over forever and ever through every great abyss of time.

So where do you begin? Where do I begin? Where can we begin as a group?

Well, we've already started. You're here to network, to get some answers, to learn a little bit about the predicament we're in and to offer some hope and trade some ideas. I'm here for the same reasons. And I'm here to offer a few basic tips that can help get you back onto a circular track instead of a straight one.

At Better Farm, the sustainability center and artists’ retreat I run in Upstate New York, we equip people with tools for infinite action. Better Farm is based out of a 19th-century farmhouse I’d call stubbornly unsustainable at best. When I moved up there two years ago the place was running off a fuel furnace, outfitted with totally inefficient light bulbs, plugged into the grid, and boasted several walls in the main building that no one had ever bothered to insulate. And that’s just for starters.
Our purpose at Better Farm isn’t to be holier-than-thou, and it isn’t to be perfectly green, and it’s certainly not to make people feel hopeless. Our purpose is to empower people to make more sustainable, creative decisions in their daily lives and to see how those actions and reactions make a difference to that cubic foot of soil, this earthworm, that organically grown vegetable, this body that eats said plant, that pile of compost, those trees, this air, and on and on and on.
What we try to teach people, in essence, is to believe in the power of one, even if that power of one isn’t going to reverse industrial waste or make a politician change course, or mean that we as a nation suddenly lose interest in the oil reserves of the Middle East, or the Gulf, or dear old Alaska.
Because it does matter to that earthworm and to your body and to all the tiny life systems you’d be affecting by making your own compost and growing organic vegetables and stepping outside of this linear consumerist culture that celebrates what's disposable and deplores all that lasts and comes around again. And if you can get your drinking buddy or your grandmother or your co-workers to realize that small difference, maybe he or she or they will start doing something small too. And with all those small things come bigger things, come all the other important things needed to bring about that very large change that is really so completely necessary.
At Better Farm, we give people a living laboratory to test out sustainable ideas. People visit for a night, a month, two months, or an entire season and spend their days figuring out sustainable systems for everyday life. Better Farm’s interns this summer outfitted a small cabin with a DIY solar kit, researched, designed, and installed a rainwater catchment system, studied companion planting and employed it in our gardens, and utilized a no-till, mulch-gardening system that relies on biodegradable matter and natural pesticides and fertilizers.
Everything we do is experimental in nature, and 100-percent sustainable in practice. If we take our organic food scraps and compost them, and use the compost to enhance the growth of plants in the garden, and water the seeds with harvested rain, and eat that produce; and if every year we rotate where crops are planted to ensure the ground gets fresh and different nutrients, well, that’s a sustainable system. Period.

We do smaller stuff, too, like preserve our own food, make our own biodegradable soaps, install solar panels on our newly renovated Art Barn, and improve the house we live in by upcycling and DIY’ing and switching out those terrible old lightbulbs for motion sensors and high-efficiency bulbs. It means buying less and making more, it means using what you might throw out to make something new.
And while we do all these things, we show the people there how they can make these changes too. You can leave Better Farm and go back to Brooklyn with the skills to start a community garden or grow your own salad greens or hook up a small solar kit or, if you’re lucky enough to have a little yard, you can gather rain. You can take yourself as far out of the one-way, linear system as you want. You can have a compost toilet, off-grid solar or wind system, geothermal heating and cooling, and cob walls if you get really ambitious. The sky and dirt and ocean are the limit, and maybe they’re not even the limit, and maybe you can’t go that far anyway but would like to do something. That’s fine. There is still so much you and I and we can do.

Here are my top-5 picks for changes you can make starting today to live more sustainably.

Compost your food scraps. The EPA estimates that Americans discarded 31 million tons of food into landfills in 2008. Most of that food never receives the oxygen required to decay, which means most of the food in landfills simply doesn't decompose. The garbage in landfills that does decompose creates methane, a global-warming gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. Whether you feed your food scraps directly to your garden, or to a compost tumbler next to your neat and tidy suburban garden, or to the earth worms living in a big tupperware container under your New York City apartment sink, you're creating a totally sustainable system of dirt-to-plants-to consumption - to compost - to dirt. If you don't have a garden, take your beautiful black topsoil you create and donate it to a community garden or your favorite Green Thumb. Or start a few spinach plants on your windowsill.
Collect as much rainwater as you can. Rivers have been so badly diverted by dams and rerouted to grow cotton and lettuce, many of the world's greatest rivers never even reach the sea. About two-thirds of the water taken out of rivers is for big agriculture. A quarter goes to industrial use. The last 9 to 10 percent goes to cities and towns. Today, rivers have been diverted to fill bathtubs and swimming pools, to turn the turbines of power plants, and cool the wheels of industry. The last time the Colorado River reached the ocean was 1993. By taking a downspout from your gutter system and inserting it in a 50, 100, or 1,000-gallon drum, you can collect enough water from one good rainfall to water everything in your yard the next time things are looking dry. You can hook that water to an outdoor shower setup. You can use that water to flush toilets, run your washing machine, or fill your pool. The bigger the rainwater collection bin, the more water you can store. If you don't have gutters on your house, you can put a 10-foot gutter on the side of any shed or garage, hook it to a downspout and collection bin, and collect water that way. Even a big wine jug with a funnel sticking out of it on your fire escape in the city will gather enough water for you to take care of your houseplants.
Change your shopping habits. More than voting, public demonstration, petition-signing, and protesting combined, the choices you make as a consumer are your most powerful positioning points as a member of this society. Where you put your money will dictate policy, trends, supply and demand. By making small, smart decisions every day about where your food, clothes, house supplies, beauty products, and every thing else you pay for comes from, you will be making the biggest impact of all.
Grow your own food. Even one thing. Even spinach on your windowsill, or peppers, or a hanging herb bed in your kitchen. If you provide just one vegetable, herb, or salad green you love for yourself, you'll be saving exponential amounts of money and fossil fuels otherwise spent in the transportation of that item to you commercially throughout your lifetime. If you feel ambitious, start a garden—even a hydroponic garden inside, with a fishtank, some freshwater fish, and floating lettuce plants. Start a community garden with your neighbors if you don't have the time to take care of so much on your own.
Stop eating so much meat. 18 percent of the “greenhouse effect” is believed to be caused by methane, much of which is caused by cud-chewers like sheep, goats, camels, water buffalo, and most of all, cattle—of which the world has an estimated 1.2 billion. According to the United Nations, raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, planes, ships, trucks, and trains in the world combined. Seventy percent of the leveled rain forest in the Amazon is used to raise animals for meat consumption. Try spending one day a week as a vegetarian or vegan. The rest of the time, insist on buying only locally raised organic meats. Take a year and don't step foot into any fast-food restaurant. Or a month. Or a week. In addition to the obvious health benefits, you'll be stepping outside the factory-farming chain that has wreaked such havoc on eco systems, the environment, and health.

While we may not be able to stop industrial waste before the planet is too sick to take on all us humans, or reverse global warming, or change our president’s policy with protests or even events like this (though we should protest, and we should keep having these events, as many as possible), we can continue to push for those changes and insist on them and do everything in our power to make big sweeping change about the very paradigm we’re in of feeding into a system that is the polar opposite of sustainable. And in doing many small things at home, making hundreds of tiny decisions every day that reduce our footprint and improve the soil in our backyards and keep as much as possible out of landfills and waterways and even the air, then we can each get ourselves back into line with what nature intended.

Which is to say we might lend ourselves a bit more to infinity and improving the natural life cycles all around us that we’ve lost so much sight of.

A Brief Rant on the Ever-Precarious State of the Union

2011-09-06T14:06:00.001-04:00

Originally posted at blog.betterfarm.org

In spite of moves throughout his term toward clean-energy tax credits and the implementation of the first fuel-efficiency standards for heavy-duty trucks, the president on Friday announced his decision to reverse positioning on tougher air-quality rules that some experts say would have reduced instances of premature deaths and heart attacks annually by 6,500.

The Washington Times reported Sunday that a "slew of White House retreats on environmental issues has 'green' voters seeing red—and threatening political consequences for President Obama in next year's election." This came at the heels of the aforementioned loosening of air-quality regulations and protests last week in defiance of Obama's proposed Keystone XL pipeline extension:

Everyone's favorite mermaid makes a Splash and gets arrested in D.C. last week at an XL pipeline protest.

And of course, let's not forget the total lack of governance that contributed to one of BP's pipes bursting under the Gulf.

Obama's most recent turning-of-tail has to do with changing the "ozone standard", which basically breaks down the amount of parts-per-billion allowed to be released into the atmosphere by U.S. industry. Though Obama's administration previously claimed the ozone standard of 75 parts per billion (set by the Bush administration in 2008) was based on outdated science, the new standard of 70 parts per billion (which the EPA and NRDC estimate would result in 4,300 fewer premature deaths and 2,200 fewer heart attacks annually by 2020) has been nixed. Ignored. Forgotten about. In fact, Obama cited the tragic economic climate as proof that protecting the environment at the cost of American jobs was, quite simply, not worth it.

Which brings me to my rant.

In order for us to have the luxury to play games with politics (in fact, to have politics at all) and the division of power; to invent an idea of currency that is totally abstract and without any actual basis in the real world; to make wonderful inventions and to live in them as though they were as literal as the trees that grow and the wind that blows; in order to do any of these silly human things—to make civilizations and destroy them, to obsess over material gains, to build great skyscrapers and jetset and work a 9-5 job and lobby congress and to invest and gamble and win and lose...

We have to, fundamentally, be able to breathe and eat and have shelter. Before we can worry about job loss in America, or our footing in the international economy, we have to remember we're animals who have to be able to breathe and drink water and eat food. And that the more we poison those things, whether by dumping oil in the water or ignoring the toxins we emit into the air or ripping down trees for big agriculture so forests eventually turn into deserts, the closer we bring ourselves to the point of no return, literally speaking.

Yes, in a short-term way you can create big, fancy water treatment plants that will allow the richest among us to drink the best water money can buy. You can make gated communities with poisoned, treated sod and no bugs at all. You can make more and more car factories (even some within inexplicably "green" structures), you can farm salmon indoors, you can break apart entire mountains and make pretty bands of gold to show how in love you are. You can keep doing these things, but the One Great Truth about sustainability is that these things, done in these ways, simply can't go on forever. The system itself is unsustainable.

So the longer we choose industry over environment, jobs over air, corporate loopholes over water, well, the less sustainable we are. And the closer we come to that dreaded point of no return. Come on, Mr. President. You who would be our "Yes We Can" agent of change owe it to those who believed in you to put our well-being over the monetary gains of private interests and some conceptual bottom line. We can't keep pushing the pesky issue of finite natural resources out of the way to keep big business happy. Doing so secures only one thing: that we're going to run out of the very things we need the most.

Just a little food for thought.

Want to get even more worked up? Recommended reading: What We Leave Behind, by Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay.

5 Lofty Ideas for Saving Space

2011-08-16T12:40:00.000-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

Welcome to Nicole, who's trying out for a spot on our editorial team. Enjoy!

Whether you've just bought your starter studio in Manhattan, are converting your garage into a living space, or are just tight on room in spite of high ceilings, remember that sometimes expansion doesn't require growing out of anything. The lofts featured here are great lessons in maximizing—in fact, often doubling—your space without growing out at all. True growth begins within!

Originally published at Re-Nest.com

My Appearance on CBS Radio Broadcast 'Boomer and Carton'

2011-06-15T13:55:00.000-04:00

Overheard Boomer and Carton chatting yesterday on the radio about the merits of posing for Playgirl and decided to give them a call this morning during their broadcast.

Click here for the full audio.

Siegfried

2011-03-13T15:50:00.001-04:00

The truck is a ’94 Toyota. Its exterior is the color of dead leaves on the ground, layers of beige and brown. I sit inside and spy a plastic sculpture of Buddha duct-taped to the dashboard.

“You have to rub Buddha’s belly before we leave,” he tells me. I do. He shifts into reverse.

It started with a promise that had nothing to do with Toyotas, or Buddhas, or dead leaves. It was before all that, but after most everything else.

Here it was: to be the one who would solve the unsolvable riddle; the Siegfried who would slay the dragon, defeat Wotan, and walk through fire to wake Brünnhilde, the sleeping warrior-goddess, with a kiss.

It’s in the dry sound of wood being stacked in the cold, North Country air. The grind of tires as a four-wheeler careens through snowy backcountry on an island no one’s ever heard of. It’s in the crackle of a wood stove, the sensation of hand on hand in the early morning before I quite know where I am.

The old man from down the street tells me not to give up. “If you think you can’t do it, you’ve got to.” I look around at the rubble of more than a quarter-century of living and see a world of magical people I dared not choose between, lost in Zeno's paradox forever. The earth moves around me. I put a pile of books, a shawl, and several changes of clothes into a bag. I look at a plane ticket; trade Redwood for Redwoods. A blank, marbly composition book sits next to me. I pick up my pen and begin to write.

Redwood Happenings: Jan. 12, 2011

2011-01-12T10:45:00.000-05:00

[Originally Published in the Thousand Islands Sun, Jan. 12, 2011]

Life's Robulous Rebus

2010-11-22T16:56:00.001-05:00

The sky is fuchsia with sunset. We marvel at the clouds. I look over at him. His eyes are filled with tears.

"The best guide in life is strength,” said Swami Vivekananda. “Discard everything that weakens you, have nothing to do with it.” Instead, as you evaluate each person and situation that comes before you, ask yourself: “Will this feed my vitality or will it not?"

I’ve always believed in the power of reinvention; a theory that none of us is ever so trapped we can’t stand up and make our lives anew. If you’ve got itchy feet, a loss of hope, or are just fed up with the humdrum hootchie-koo of daily life, get a copy of Finnegans Wake and a Greyhound bus ticket and call me in the morning.

But fear breeds paralysis. Case studies (still under observation):

The woman slumped in her barstool, looking too young to already be so old. A glass of vodka sat in front of her. “I miss him so much,” she said. Her haunted face crumpled. Where was her bus ticket?

Or the man who in confidence conveyed how trapped he feels; how he hates his life but feels powerless to change it. Where’s his outlaw bible?

"Phall if you but will," James Joyce tells us, "rise you must.”

“Can’t you feel this?” he asks, pulling me back from all this thinking.

“Of course I can.” My belly burns. My whole body is alive. Every cell is singing.

The Ultimate Outlaw

2010-11-13T19:02:00.000-05:00

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.

Tom Robbins

I went back to school in 2005 to earn a master’s degree in journalism. One of the reasons behind it was to be in a boot camp-style setting where my ass would be kicked all over the proverbial court. I wanted the challenge good classes give; with teachers who wouldn’t let me off the hook, classmates who critiqued everything I said and did, and assignments that challenged me to analyze my growth and position on any number of topics.

The experience isn’t much different from entering a relationship. You know there’s going to be a mirror held up to you at every bend in the road. A good partner won’t let you off the hook, will question your positions, and challenge you to analyze your growth. You know there will be days when your partner is simply “not in the mood”, cranky, insulting, or downright tough to be around. And ditto for you. No one in the world sees those secret parts of yourself you’re so good at hiding—no one, that is, except the person you promise to love so well. You can slip nothing by the goalie in a relationship—the microscope is on, and you’re the little bacteria swimming in the illuminated Petri dish.

Dating is a whole different ballgame from a friend who asks so little of you, or an acquaintance who, if annoyed or offended or bothered, can simply walk away and forget your exchange.

A relationship forces accountability in all the areas we find most uncomfortable to examine. And yet in spite of all this discomfort and ugliness, each of us is all too eager to hop aboard when Mr. or Mrs. Right arrives. We sign up even as we know this might not work. And as we warn each other—“guys can’t stand this about me” or “I’m no good for you” or “I know you’re going to break my heart”—we grow ever closer, ever more vulnerable, ever more intertwined until we wonder:

What could there have possibly been before all of this?

My dad played college basketball. He wasn’t a star, but he practiced with some of the best who went on to be pro. He said during all those games spent on the bench in college, he hoped that his time practicing with these greats on this defensive exercise, or that dribbling drill, had somehow helped to push them where they went. Maybe this was his contribution, he figured: not to have been the best, but to have been the one who pushed the others who would go on to become giants.

Are relationships about getting somewhere specific with our partners? Or could it be another idea, about pushing each other past his or her limits so that our partner-in-crime (for a time)'s best self can form? And what if we get there? What if our partners take us to that edge, but then go away? Are we better? Are they? Is there a “better” in a scenario like this? Can we be pushed to that new, untouched place, and still manage to hold on to the person who helped us find it?

Tommy Robbins says, “We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.” And maybe that’s true. Maybe we meet people who so excite us, we rely on that excitement to fill our hearts and minds indefinitely. And in doing so, we get lazy and forget to create that excitement, that magic, every day. We do things without thinking and end up hurting the person we most want to protect. Or worse, we do hurtful things as a way to get out of a situation we no longer find magical.

Did I get lazy? Did you? Where in the world did all this get so lost in translation, when all the same feelings are still swirling around with those butterflies in my belly? The things I learn sometimes make my belly ache in such a different way than all those damned butterflies. But even as we all suffer along and drag our bodies through the warzone, I go back to my grad school decision. And then I remember that I know so much more than I used to know. And that maybe, just maybe, these lessons of mine (and yours) are actually clues to create that perfect love I sense so well but still fumble over anytime I try to grasp it.

Redwood Happenings: Sept. 15, 2010

2010-09-15T12:36:00.000-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

[Originally published in the Thousand Islands Sun, Sept. 15, 2010]

Redwood Happenings: Sept. 1, 2010

2010-09-01T12:23:00.001-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

[Originally Published in the Thousand Islands Sun, Sept. 1, 2010]

Redwood Happenings: Aug. 18

2010-08-18T17:24:00.000-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

Originally published in the Thousand Islands Sun Aug. 18, 2010

Redwood Happenings: Aug. 11

2010-08-11T17:09:00.001-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

Originally Published in the Thousand Islands Sun Aug. 11, 2010

Love Letter, Part 2

2010-08-08T13:21:00.001-04:00

I loved you. And my love, I think, was stronger than to be quite extinct within me yet. But let it not distress you any longer—I would not have you feel the least regret.

I loved you bare of hope and of expression, by turns with jealousy and shyness sore. I loved you with such purity, such passion; as may God grant you to be loved once more.

-Pushkin

Time here is like an old lady in the ground.

Redwood Happenings: July 28

2010-07-28T17:01:00.000-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

Originally published in the Thousand Islands Sun July 28, 2010

Redwood Happenings: July 13

2010-07-13T09:39:00.000-04:00

By Nicole Caldwell

[Originally published in the Thousand Islands Sun, July 13, 2010]

Expert Quote Alert: Weighing in on the World Cup

2010-07-12T14:20:00.001-04:00

Field of visions: The World Cup overflows with intoxicatingly hot bodies

By Monica Hesse and Lonnae O'Neal Parker

Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 10, 2010

See full article here.

It's the hair," says Nicole Caldwell, Playgirl's editor in chief. "Swimmers are the only other athletes who have bodies like this, and they have to shave their heads. Soccer players have that lustrous, beautiful hair."

Love Letter

2010-06-15T09:52:00.002-04:00

The little old men at the Redwood Tavern agree: the Winchester Model 12 is the greatest shotgun ever made.

When the cows come home, pigs fly, Hell freezes over, and the music dies, you can bet there will be a handful of old coots parked in rocking chairs on front porches holding their Winchester Model 12s across their laps. These guns are going to be Redwood’s ticket out of the apocalypse, I’m told: Oil spills in the Gulf, terrorist attacks, alien invasions, plagues—you bring it, the Winchester Model 12 will smite it.

The Model 12 is a direct descendant of Winchester’s Gun that Won the West, they tell me. That intimidating history, drawn from a beautiful and god-forsaken time of manifest destiny that carved trails of tears through what would later become a flurry of golden highways, strip malls, and Taco Bells, gave the Model 12 its grit.

Winchester Model 12’s tenacious 1912 design was something firearm enthusiasts had never seen before. And you better believe that while only available in a 20 gauge (perfection has no need for flexibility), the Model 12 would fast become the first internal hammer pump-action shotgun success story.

The United States Army scooped up 20,000 Model 12 trench guns for World War I; and 80,000 were bought by the Marine Corps, Air Forces, and Navy for World War II. In fact, almost 2 million Winchester Model 12s made their way into the hands of soldiers, housewives, hunters, and Jonny Q. Publics before the model was discontinued in 1963.

This is the kind of gun you take into battle. It’s the kind of gun you reach for after waking up in the middle of the night when something goes bump. This baby is the Cadillac of cannons; the Winfrey of weaponry; the Rolls Royce of revolvers. That Winchester Model 12 is one hell of a shotgun.

Tell the preacher to suspend all service—that gun and I are going places. Wedding veils and open roads and deep soul-searching on the backbone of the US of A with my Winchester Model 12. How-eee, the tingle of tactical perfection and love-falling. Winchester Model 12, you must be the one.

Kobiashi Maru

The Bricks of Oz

Redwood Happenings: Jan. 11, 2012

Redwood Happenings: Jan. 4, 2012

Why ‘Manscaping’ Isn't Just for Porn Stars Anymore

Interview with WWNY 7 TV

The Source

Watertown Daily Times Profiles Award-Winners

2011 Young Professionals Award Winners Announced

My Lecture at Moving Planet's International Day of Action

A Brief Rant on the Ever-Precarious State of the Union

5 Lofty Ideas for Saving Space

My Appearance on CBS Radio Broadcast 'Boomer and Carton'

Siegfried

Redwood Happenings: Jan. 12, 2011

Life's Robulous Rebus

The Ultimate Outlaw

Redwood Happenings: Sept. 15, 2010

Redwood Happenings: Sept. 1, 2010

Redwood Happenings: Aug. 18

Redwood Happenings: Aug. 11

Love Letter, Part 2

Redwood Happenings: July 28

Redwood Happenings: July 13

Expert Quote Alert: Weighing in on the World Cup

Field of visions: The World Cup overflows with intoxicatingly hot bodies

By Monica Hesse and Lonnae O'Neal Parker

Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, July 10, 2010

See full article here.

It's the hair," says Nicole Caldwell, Playgirl's editor in chief. "Swimmers are the only other athletes who have bodies like this, and they have to shave their heads. Soccer players have that lustrous, beautiful hair."

Love Letter

Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 10, 2010