kevin o

"We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common..."

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 17:07:13 -0400

“We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill, and lie to make money. They throw poor people out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power.”

- Chris Hedges (via azspot)

Which one of these is not like the others?

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:52:01 -0400

Which one of these is not like the others?

I found this in an album that my sister had stashed away in her...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 07:22:23 -0400

I found this in an album that my sister had stashed away in her attic. It’s the 1st grade class of St. Elizabeth’s Elementary School circa 1956. I’m the one furthest from the camera, in the back corner with the bow tie - I was stylin’ back then. It amazes me how many faces I still recognize even though I don’t remember most of the names.

The little girl in the first desk, first row, is Cathy. She and I went all the way through high school together. We lost touch after that but have been reconnected through the miracle that is Facebook. She married another friend of ours from high school. They had four kids and then got divorced. She seems happy though and I’ve always liked her.

In the fourth row from the wall, in front, sporting the tie, that’s Joe Evans. He and I were good friends. Joe got an Erector Set one Christmas - the edition that came with an electric motor - and we spent a lot of time building robots and tanks and stuff.

The kid two desks behind Joe is Gary. He’s the one with the serial killer’s smile. Gary lived across the street from me. We played together a lot but we never really liked each other - we were always getting into fights. It probably had something to do with the fact that our parents didn’t like each other - trickle-down animosity. One day we were sitting on the curb outside of his house eating popsicles - it was the middle of summer so we were wearing shorts, shirtless, and barefoot. When we finished our popsicles we started filing the tips of the sticks on the concrete curb until they had a sharp-edged point. We did this all the time - it was just an idle activity we did while conversing about the major topics of the day - it was sort of like whittling. Well Gary - the little prick - out of nowhere - gets up and stabs me in the back with his stick and runs away. I had to walk home with that popsicle stick in my back and get my sister to pull it out.

Williams - I think that was his last name - Gary Williams. Cold blooded killer, that boy. Et tu, Gary?

Old Overholt. Neat, in a juice glass, chugged....

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:49:00 -0400

Old Overholt. Neat, in a juice glass, chugged. http://elxr.co/p/1io

Bordeaux Cocktail Take Two at Tastebuds American Bistro....

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:01:49 -0400

Bordeaux Cocktail Take Two at Tastebuds American Bistro. Broker’s Gin, Lillet Blanc, Cognac & Cognac-Soaked Orange Segments, House Made Bitters, Served on the Rocks. http://elxr.co/p/1bd

Top 10 Things We’ve Learned about Richmond Drinkers from New Elixr App - Richmond.com: City Life

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:30:29 -0400

Top 10 Things We’ve Learned about Richmond Drinkers from New Elixr App - Richmond.com: City Life

Classic Martini at Best Seat At Banditos. http://elxr.co/p/qi

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 19:24:39 -0400

Classic Martini at Best Seat At Banditos. http://elxr.co/p/qi

Beer Dinner at Acacia (via...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 10:41:48 -0500

Beer Dinner at Acacia

(via http://www.acaciarestaurant.com/BlogPost.aspx?Postid=48)

becky o’farrell

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:26:00 -0500

becky o’farrell

Hero. Real. Hero

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:54:00 -0500

Hero. Real. Hero

East of Charlottesville

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 15:39:14 -0500

East of Charlottesville

Ames Homebrew Milk Stout with a honey-glazed turkey and bacon...

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 13:21:11 -0500

Ames Homebrew Milk Stout with a honey-glazed turkey and bacon sandwich with mustard, mayo, and hot banana peppers

Huli and Owen

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:37:00 -0500

Huli and Owen

"Though LaPierre is the pope of this religion, its most successful Peter the Hermit, preaching the..."

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:51:17 -0500

“Though LaPierre is the pope of this religion, its most successful Peter the Hermit, preaching the crusade for Moloch, was Charlton Heston, a symbol of the Americanism of loving guns. I have often thought that we should raise a statue of Heston at each of the many sites of multiple murders around our land. We would soon have armies of statues, whole droves of Heston acolytes standing sentry at the shrines of Moloch dotting the landscape. Molochism is the one religion that can never be separated from the state. The state itself bows down to Moloch, and protects the sacrifices made to him. So let us celebrate the falling bodies and rising statues as a demonstration of our fealty, our bondage, to the great god Gun.”

- Garry Wills (via azspot)

too good!

He was a good soul.

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 15:12:00 -0500

He was a good soul.

"We should let the free market decide the atomic weight of carbon."

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:06:08 -0500

“We should let the free market decide the atomic weight of carbon.”

- Stephen Colbert

a merry little christmas

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 04:06:13 -0500

a merry little christmas

I miss that time my ears began to bleed.

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:29:04 -0500

I miss that time my ears began to bleed.

For this I am thankful.

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 08:32:32 -0500

For this I am thankful.

good: Five Reasons Why Urban Farming is the Most Important...

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:50:59 -0500

good:

Five Reasons Why Urban Farming is the Most Important Movement of our Time
- by Ro Kumar

I love suburbia not for what it is, but for what it could be. While most other houses on my street have grass lawns, my yard sprouts zucchinis, tomatoes, pomegranates, kale, spinach, apples, figs, guavas, almonds, garlic, onion, strawberries, and more. Over 500 plant species all in all. We grow more than 3000 pounds of food per year on a plot of land the size of a basketball court—enough fruits and vegetables to feed my family of four year-round. Our house is part of a growing global movement of people involved in urban farming.

The simple act of planting a garden can shape issues like economics, health, and politics at the same time because food is an essential focal point of human activity. As the urban farming movement grows, here are five ways that it will transform our world

1. Renewed local economies. Local neighbor-to-neighbor commerce generally doesn’t happen in our communities. Residential areas almost never include common spaces where community exchanges might happen. Likewise, because selling homemade bread to your neighbors is illegal in most areas, the law discourages community commerce, and instead encourages you to purchase from the supermarket chain.

In my own community, the urban farming movement has reinvigorated local commerce. Instead of buying oranges, I now trade pumpkin for oranges from my neighbor’s tree. If urban farming continued to grow, it would cause a massive and positive economic disruption by introducing local food production that would compete with the corporate mainstream on price, quality, convenience, and level of service.

2. Environmental stewardship. Industrial agriculture is a major source of fossil fuel pollution. Petrochemicals are used to fertilize, spray, and preserve food. Plastics made from oil are used to package the food, and gasoline is used to transport food worldwide. Urban farming unplugs us from oil by minimizing the transport footprint and using organic cultivation methods.

While industrial agriculture often maneuvers to avoid paying for environmental externalities, urban farmers directly bear the ecological costs of their actions. This makes urban farmers better stewards of their land because they draw their nutrition from it. Rather than using chemicals that destroy soil biology, urban farming culture stresses sustainable organic techniques that enrich the topsoil.

3. A focus on local politics. Urban farming makes it clearer and easier for people to be involved in local politics by bringing issues that directly affect neighborhoods to the fore. Local regulations become far more relevant to the day-to-day life of a person attempting to cultivate their own food than most issues normally discussed on CNN. The growth of urban farming has already resulted in large-scale legal pushes like the California Cottage Food Act, which will allow people to legally sell certain homemade goods like jams and breads. Other neighborhood issues such as the raising of chickens, beekeeping for the production of honey, or the chlorination of water are already in the sights of urban farmers and environmentalists alike.

4. A revolution of health and nutrition. Increased awareness about the negative health effects of food from the industrial food chain is itself a big reason why urban farmers grow their own food. When you feed your produce to your family, you’re less likely to douse it in poisons. Local food has more freshness, flavor, and nutrient retention because it goes through less transportation and processing. As the urban farming movement grows, it will mean more accessibility to nutritious local food and more time spent doing the healthy physical work of gardening. This could result in less obesity, less chronic disease, and decreased healthcare spending.

5. A flowering of community interaction. Urban farming is a lifestyle inherently centered on community. Growing food is, after all, a cooperative effort. In my own community, I see that the knowledge of how and what to grow is exchanged, seeds are swapped, labor is shared, and the harvest is traded. As urban farming grows, a stronger interdependence within communities is likely to result as local food systems bring more community interaction into people’s daily lives.

The most important movement of our time. Although there are many other notable initiatives today, the influence of urban farming is uniquely widespread because more people live in cities than rural areas and food is a central necessity that affects everything at once. The seeds of change are already being planted in homes like mine across the world. For these seeds to grow and blossom, we need to demand more local food so that the market for urban-grown produce expands. We also need to put pressure on our legal system to allow easier local trade and more local food production.

Imagine if we grew food instead of grass. Every community is a local food economy waiting to come to life. The answer to climate change, the health crisis, and the recession economy is right outside your door. I’ll meet you at the garden fence.

Photos courtesy of Ro Kumar, editor of localblu.com, a blog covering urban farming and sustainability.