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#61
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Feel free to offer some citations for your responses, otherwise it is just opinion, and you know what they say about opinions. from _Permaculture_, Bill Mollison, 1990 p. 377 And this would be "Permaculture : a designer's manual / by Bill Mollison ; illustrated by Andrew Jeeves", 576 pages, Tagari Publications (December 1988) Good thing his books are available at the library. They are very pricy. been a very interesting read. i think the general information in it is worth contemplation. i'm not sure some of his political or other views are really needed, but how could anyone write such a large topical book like this and not wander off on a few rants here or there? sadly, it really needed a good editor and more proof readers to catch the many textual layout mistakes, miswords, and outright factual errors. [moles don't eat/store bulbs, but they may shift them a little bit in their diggings -- other creatures that use their tunnels may eat and store bulbs, but that is a whole different thing...] "SOILS In drylands, any soil humus can rapidly decompose (in dry-cracked soils) to nitrates with heat and water, giving a sometimes lethal flush of nitrate to new seedlings. Dry cultivated soils exacerbates this effect. Mulches or litter on top of the soils prevents both soil cracking and the lethal effect of rapid temperature gains that cook feeder roots at the surface, so that in subsequent rains there is less roots to absorb water. Warm, wet environments also lead to rapid breakdown of organic material (OM). This is also the reason that healthy soil should only be 5% by weight, 10% by volume "OM". Otherwise, you'll pollute just like chemical fertilizers. i think this can vary, if you have an actively growing crop with heavy roots already established then it should be able to soak up extra nutrients quickly. Fire is destructive of this protective litter. After fire and cultivation, most of the soil nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorous is lost, and even a cool fire loses plant nutrients to soil water and leaching. When we know more of the effects of fire in drylands, it is my opinion that we will use any other method (slashing, rolling, even light grazing) to reduce fire litter to soil mulch. It now seems probable that Aboriginal burning has not only gravely depleted soil nutrients, but caused a breakdown in soil structure, and perhaps been in great part responsible for the saltpans that preceded agriculture. However, agriculture itself is a mon- strously effective way to speed up this process and intensify it." In the book by Charles Mann, "1492", it was noted that the Amazonians used "slashed and burn" agriculture, which was detrimental to the land. Exhausting the laterite soil, they had to move every couple of years IIRC. Subsequent archeology revealed that the Amazonians had a much more complex society that wasn't reflected in their "slash, and burm" agriculture. Prior to the arrival of diseased Europeans, many Amazonians lead an urban life based on great orchards. However, to protect themselves against European diseases, Amazonians left their cities to live in small groups, which survived by subsistent farming. i suspect it was the fact that the whole area basically collapsed and the entire social setup was likely destroyed too. what remained were some fairly isolated groups and those groups not being a part of the central peoples may have had taboos about copying their ways of terra preta or tree farming. "Look what happened to them! We better do something different." an opinion from someone who wrote a primary text on permaculture. it would be interesting to know what observations he used to form that opinion. i've yet to see anyone else make the obvious connection between grassland burnings and soil depletion for drylands. to me the thought upon seeing fires almost anyplace is of all those nutrients going up in smoke. The soil needs to have organic material in order to hold moisture, and to feed the micro-organisms that compose the soil ecology, which ultimately feed the plants. Whether the "OM" is lost by the rapid oxidation of cellulose in a fire, or the stimulation of micro-organism in the soil from aeration caused by a plow doesn't make any difference. Any consistent loss of "OM" from the soil will reduce it's fertility. yes, but the added harm in fire is that some nutrients are lost to the air and dispersed. even those that can float for a long time would end up 70-80% in the oceans. at least with localized decays you have a better chance of keeping trace nutrients in the area. the book has been interesting overall. i like many of his perspectives and how to treat an area based upon the limit of the water supply and that you cannot have more people than the worst case scenario will support. also he recognizes overgrazing as the most damaging problem for many areas that are currently having trouble feeding people. and like me he laments the loss of the forests. The forests, of course, are the source of freshwater. a big part of it. songbird |
#62
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086...29546060_email _1p_1_ti Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization The evolutionary road is littered with failed experiments, however, and Manning suggests that agriculture as we have practiced it runs against both our grain and nature's. Drawing on the work of anthropologists, biologists, archaeologists, and philosophers, along with his own travels, he argues that not only our ecological ills-overpopulation, erosion, pollution-but our social and emotional malaise are rooted in the devil's bargain we made in our not-so-distant past. And he offers personal, achievable ways we might re-contour the path we have taken to resurrect what is most sustainable and sustaining in our own nature and the planet's. ----- I know it doesn't prove anything, but at least I, and Jarod Diamond, aren't alone in this belief. I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. If you liked "Omnivore", then you'll love Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368389425&sr=1-1&keywords=Aga inst+the+grain+%3A+how+agriculture+has+hijacked+ci vilization+%2F+Richard+ Manning From Booklist A growing body of somewhat controversial scholarship ties the beginnings of war to the "culture of scarcity" that emerged with the invention, sometime in the Neolithic era and probably in the eastern Mediterranean, of agriculture. Before that, these theorists contend, humans lived as hunter-gatherers who were, far from the common vision of the half-starved caveman, quite comfortable and well-fed, because their diet was both varied and seasonal. The investment of time and energy to grow a few crops led, paradoxically, to both great excess and horrific want; when the crops failed, famine followed among people whose population had swelled beyond the small tribes of the earlier peoples. These theories are regularly bruited about at academic meetings, but rarely are they the subject of popular writing (Daniel Quinn's 1992 novel Ishmael constitutes an exception). Manning brings theory to life with well-crafted essays that cover such diverse subjects as the Irish potato famine and the controversy over bioengineered plants. Readable and well-researched, this book unsettles as it informs. ====== I have a sinking feeling. Tomatoland : how modern industrial agriculture destroyed our most alluring fruit http://www.amazon.com/Tomatoland-Ind...stroyed-Alluri ng/dp/1449423450/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=136839 0807&s r=1-1&keywords=Tomatoland+%3A+how+modern+industrial+ag riculture+destroyed +our+most+alluring+fruit Looks like it is good too :O( The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food by Kaayla T. Daniel http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Soy-Stor.../0967089751/re f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368391029&sr=1-1&keywords=The+whole+soy+sto ry+%3A+the+dark+side+of+America%27s+favorite+healt h+food+%2F+Kaayla+T.+Da niel. Too early to tell. The writing seems a little pedantic to my taste, but all the elements for a good, corporate conspiracy are here. I think I'm running out of bookmarks. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#63
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: .... I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. haha. what year was it published? i'll put it on the list. Tomatoland is already on it. i think you'll enjoy _Debt_, the first 5,000 years by Graeber. If you liked "Omnivore", then you'll love Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization i'll add it to the list too. .... The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food by Kaayla T. Daniel http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Soy-Stor.../0967089751/re f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368391029&sr=1-1&keywords=The+whole+soy+sto ry+%3A+the+dark+side+of+America%27s+favorite+healt h+food+%2F+Kaayla+T.+Da niel. Too early to tell. The writing seems a little pedantic to my taste, but all the elements for a good, corporate conspiracy are here. I think I'm running out of bookmarks. songbird |
#64
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. haha. what year was it published? North Point Press, 2004., according to the library. North Point Press; 1st edition (January 13, 2005) according to Amazon. i'll put it on the list. Tomatoland is already on it. i think you'll enjoy _Debt_, the first 5,000 years by Graeber. 534 pages, huh? I'll get you for this, bird. Maybe I could interest you in "Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Factory...vironment/dp/B 004IK9EJQ/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1368423484&sr=1-1 It practically reads itself,honest, and is only 512 pages. or The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine...lism/dp/031242 7999/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368423694&sr=1-1&keywords=Shock+Doct rine Who knew Milton Friedman sold Neo-liberal economics to Russia, China, and the Chilean dictator, Pinochet? If you liked "Omnivore", then you'll love Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization i'll add it to the list too. ... The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food by Kaayla T. Daniel http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Soy-Stor.../0967089751/re f=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368391029&sr=1-1&keywords=The+whole+soy+sto ry+%3A+the+dark+side+of+America%27s+favorite+healt h+food+%2F+Kaayla+T.+Da niel. Too early to tell. The writing seems a little pedantic to my taste, but all the elements for a good, corporate conspiracy are here. I think I'm running out of bookmarks. songbird and I still have a pound or 2 of " A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present", by Howard Zinn to read. Oy. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#65
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. I'm doomed. I'm 10 pages into it, and it is an effortless read. The worst thing about it is the number of books the he mentions as asides. They fall like feathers in molting season. haha. what year was it published? North Point Press, 2004., according to the library. North Point Press; 1st edition (January 13, 2005) according to Amazon. i'll put it on the list. Tomatoland is already on it. i think you'll enjoy _Debt_, the first 5,000 years by Graeber. 534 pages, huh? I'll get you for this, bird. it is another interesting read, i think he has a pretty good grasp of the topic. Maybe I could interest you in "Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Factory...vironment/dp/B 004IK9EJQ/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1368423484&sr=1-1 It practically reads itself,honest, and is only 512 pages. harhar! it sounds too much like books i've already read (how much different from _The Omnivores Dilemma_ is it?) or The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein http://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine...lism/dp/031242 7999/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368423694&sr=1-1&keywords=Shock+Doct rine Who knew Milton Friedman sold Neo-liberal economics to Russia, China, and the Chilean dictator, Pinochet? any history of the WMF could make almost anyone weep. .... and I still have a pound or 2 of " A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present", by Howard Zinn to read. Oy. still on my list for next winter... i think i'll put tomatoland on that winter list too as i would like to keep going on the permaculture references for a bit yet. much better to have enough to read than be stuck watching tv. i keep the podcast list topped up too when i get times to listen. i have two rainy days forecast... almost done with the first permaculture book by Mollison and then will get to one other of his books that i have on the pile. songbird |
#66
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... The Gordian Knot solution snip I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? songbird Planted a dozen Yellow Banana Peppers yesterday. Instead of prepping in my normal fashion, I've taken to poking a hole in the soil, and then putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#67
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... The Gordian Knot solution snip I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? Planted a dozen Yellow Banana Peppers yesterday. Instead of prepping in my normal fashion, I've taken to poking a hole in the soil, and then putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. songbird |
#68
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: Billy wrote: uhoh, quoting is messed up below... The Gordian Knot solution snip I can't believe that I found another book to read :O( hehehe, always more to read. alas, i'm getting into planting season, and my health is better than any hunter-gatherer. especially if you consider i'd have never lived past a day in a society that didn't have some form of medical science and an incubator. i'm still rather fond of the much less than 20-30% murder rate too, but perhaps that is only a temporary lull in the mayhem of human existance. if the future goes wild and crazy we might get back to mass starvations and high rates of murder as the planet answers the question of over-population and abuse of resources. Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. i certainly hope for better, i don't think a return to hunting-gathering is likely for a vast number of people. a subset might be able to do it as urban hunter-gatherers or those who can be rich enough to afford enough land and have some way of protecting it from intruders or governmental confiscation. the next real hunter- gatherer societies are likely to be either those of the post-apocalyptic or on another planet. if that other planet is one we've had to engineer then it's pretty likely we've also had a good shot at doing good work here on this planet too. at least i try to remain optimistic about either of those cases. the world can heal itself given time. we see this in the geological record after huge events. so, yeah, i am optimistic, the world will continue, the question is with or without us? Planted a dozen Yellow Banana Peppers yesterday. Instead of prepping in my normal fashion, I've taken to poking a hole in the soil, and then putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. songbird We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#69
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: .... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn well yes. we have a lot of people in jail on very minor things (non-violent offenders). Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes the alternatives are demonstratably worse as already seen. socialistic adaptations to capitalism are fine to protect the elderly and the poor, but subsidies are destructive in the long haul because they distort the market signals. of course, i've already stated before what i think of taxation for pollution and making sure there is recycling and many other things. i sure know that communism isn't functional. works ok at a small scale, breaks down quickly once the group gets larger. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. if i didn't need to get areas above flood stage i wouldn't be digging quite as much and having free fill to put underneath is a big help too. i could not justify spending money i don't have for 20 yards of topsoil, but i do have time and can use the exercise. my back hasn't felt this good for many years. thanks to chiropractor and being careful the past year and listening to what my body is telling me. we're trying to walk each day before gardening. so when the day is done i'm done too. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. good luck to you and your sprouts. songbird |
#70
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: ... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). ??????? It's the same deal, famines every 10 years. Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn well yes. we have a lot of people in jail on very minor things (non-violent offenders). What we have is more people in jail (percentage wise) than any other country in the world, 1%. Most of these people are people of color, because the law is applied disproportionately. This is the new Jim Crow, just in time for the Prison Industrial Complex. The term prisonindustrial complex (PIC) is used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is borrowed from the militaryindustrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have argued that the Prison-Industrial Complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick yet ultimately flawed solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex More specifically see "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West. http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-I...dness/dp/15955 86431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369114986&sr=1-1&keywords=The+New+J im+Crow Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes the alternatives are demonstratably worse as already seen. socialistic adaptations to capitalism are fine to protect the elderly and the poor, but subsidies are destructive in the long haul because they distort the market signals. of course, i've already stated before what i think of taxation for pollution and making sure there is recycling and many other things. i sure know that communism isn't functional. works ok at a small scale, breaks down quickly once the group gets larger. Who would know, it has never been tried. The U.S.S.R. was an oligarchy, as is the capitalistic U.S. of A. The Delaration of Independance says "We the People". It doesn't say I, me, mine. We are all in this together to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about banks making money at the tax payer expense. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. The natural, free seeds are becoming fewer, and fewer. As much as I like open pollinated seeds, I know that hybridized squash has less of a problem with mildew. Hybridized means that it is owned by somebody. Usually that somebody is Monsanto. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. Mid 70s to mid 80s here for te last few weeks and the seedlings are jumpin' if i didn't need to get areas above flood stage i wouldn't be digging quite as much and having free fill to put underneath is a big help too. i could not justify spending money i don't have for 20 yards of topsoil, but i do have time and can use the exercise. my back hasn't felt this good for many years. thanks to chiropractor and being careful the past year and listening to what my body is telling me. we're trying to walk each day before gardening. so when the day is done i'm done too. I hope you make it to 60 without any chronic illnesses, otherwise it can be a real pile of shit. Good luck. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. good luck to you and your sprouts. Peppers (28) are in. Now it's on to the squash, sunflowers, and more lettuce. Then it will be beets, onions, and the misc. The seeds for the green beans must have been too old. I'll have to try again. songbird -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#71
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: two more books for the reading list: Sepp Holzer, _The Rebel Farmer_ and _Sepp Holzer's Permaculture_ i'm reading them in reverse order, almost done with the second. he's got many years of actual experience with many things, so i appreciate his writings. some things he's almost mystical about so that isn't as much a science as a ritualized practice but it seems to be working for him. i haven't gotten into mushroom farming, but i did enjoy the part of the book that gives that overview. if i do get into it sometime i'll be sure to read up on it. also how he talks about fruit trees and his methods. very low input, but you need a varied environment to pull it off. in a modern suburban landscape with grasses, etc and few understory plants that support beneficials it's a challenge. then you may also have to deal with neighborhood politics or town ordinances for weeds/lawn care. his main property is upland enough that he can work with microclimates and extending seasons of harvest by using the warmer downhill areas and cooler areas uphill along with using rocks, sun catchers and ponds. also the film mentioned: _The Agricultural Rebel_. ... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...ivilization/dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords=Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). ??????? It's the same deal, famines every 10 years. no, he writes they have evidence of 1800+ famines in about 3,000 years. that's a famine almost every year to every other year. Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn well yes. we have a lot of people in jail on very minor things (non-violent offenders). What we have is more people in jail (percentage wise) than any other country in the world, 1%. Most of these people are people of color, because the law is applied disproportionately. This is the new Jim Crow, just in time for the Prison Industrial Complex. The term prisonindustrial complex (PIC) is used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is borrowed from the militaryindustrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. he was a smart guy. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have argued that the Prison-Industrial Complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick yet ultimately flawed solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex More specifically see "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West. http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-I...dness/dp/15955 86431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369114986&sr=1-1&keywords=The+New+J im+Crow gah! no, i'm not going there. it's all around me already, i don't need to read more about it. any federal or state program is always set up and will self-perpetuate once funding gets allocated and spent. that is why i think that we should make as much government as volunteer or minimum wage as possible to discourage "entrenchment" and also to make representatives selected at random instead elected by campaigns. Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes the alternatives are demonstratably worse as already seen. socialistic adaptations to capitalism are fine to protect the elderly and the poor, but subsidies are destructive in the long haul because they distort the market signals. of course, i've already stated before what i think of taxation for pollution and making sure there is recycling and many other things. i sure know that communism isn't functional. works ok at a small scale, breaks down quickly once the group gets larger. Who would know, it has never been tried. the first few years of Christianity were supposedly communist in organisation and sharing of resources, but that devolves like any other system as soon as you put money in any large amounts into the hands of a few "leaders" or "organizers". however, i don't see any solution because any system set up still has to interface with others and that means some form of currency or government to make sure the groups don't trample each other or use false means of gain or counterfeit currencies. The U.S.S.R. was an oligarchy, as is the capitalistic U.S. of A. sure thing. with some regulation here or there but the regulators can be bought off with campaign money and lobbyists contributions. so we get the best government that money can buy. which is also exploitive of resources to the detriment of any sort of sustainable future. without the environmental groups doing their counter efforts we'd be in even worse shape (the USSR was much worse than us in terms of how they treated their people and resources). so even if i don't much like what we've got and it surely can be improved, it seems to be at least a bit more open and changeable than most of what i see anyplace else. the other aspect is that we have a hugely varied culture that some other countries don't have to cope with. how to integrate so many different forces and not have it all blow up all the time... The Delaration of Independance says "We the People". It doesn't say I, me, mine. We are all in this together to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. which isn't the constitution, but i love the language and intent. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about banks making money at the tax payer expense. probably covered under "promote the general welfare" intent above along with the clause which lets them regulate interstate commerce as many banks now cross state lines. as for the fed itself, that's a whole different story and the history of that is well worth reading up on sometime. it didn't say anything about income taxes or property taxes either, but once you get a governing class feeding off the rest of the people it is very hard to break that cycle of depredation. as to how to regulate banking, i don't see any good coming from the government being directly involved. i already am having severe dislikes to the feds current practices of transferring wealth from the responsible to the irresponsible, but put the fed in the government's direct control and it would be even worse as then they'd have no check on their abuse of the money supply. not that there seems to be one right now anyways. if i had a better place to put my money i'd be doing it, but the rest of the world is not looking much better either. my own answer is a different form of government, but that's not likely to ever happen. but getting back to the constitution, it's pretty amazing how many people don't even read it once in a while. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. The natural, free seeds are becoming fewer, and fewer. As much as I like open pollinated seeds, I know that hybridized squash has less of a problem with mildew. Hybridized means that it is owned by somebody. Usually that somebody is Monsanto. i don't think you are right. perhaps you can find an organic source for a similar hybrid and not have to buy from Monsanto. as there are so many squash varieties you might even find something better. i keep finding seed sources way beyond what i can ever possibly use here. i don't think seed-savers are going out of business any time soon, and the expansion of farmer markets and people putting in their own gardens is also a good trend in the opposite direction. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. Mid 70s to mid 80s here for te last few weeks and the seedlings are jumpin' i'm glad they are coming along. today looks pretty good for getting something done outside. if i didn't need to get areas above flood stage i wouldn't be digging quite as much and having free fill to put underneath is a big help too. i could not justify spending money i don't have for 20 yards of topsoil, but i do have time and can use the exercise. my back hasn't felt this good for many years. thanks to chiropractor and being careful the past year and listening to what my body is telling me. we're trying to walk each day before gardening. so when the day is done i'm done too. I hope you make it to 60 without any chronic illnesses, otherwise it can be a real pile of shit. Good luck. heh, allergies have always been fun, motorcycle accident broke and twisted things so i have to be careful about some angles and bends and then i've had chronic back problems since i was 15. for me to say that it is doing better is a huge improvement in how things are going. every day on the right side of the daisy roots is a day i never expected. for some reason as a kid i never expected to live past 30. having relatives with chronic lung or back troubles or diabetes i can see the way it can be. i've been through my own piles so it's just a matter of keeping on, finding what is important and working on that and not getting hung up on what i can't do. being a systems analyst means being able to break down a problem and work the parts until it comes back together again. keep the big picture in mind. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. good luck to you and your sprouts. Peppers (28) are in. Now it's on to the squash, sunflowers, and more lettuce. Then it will be beets, onions, and the misc. The seeds for the green beans must have been too old. I'll have to try again. luckily they can be planted in series. i keep planting peas and beans as much as i can, i like the flowers and foliage as much as the edibles. songbird |
#72
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: two more books for the reading list: Sepp Holzer, _The Rebel Farmer_ and _Sepp Holzer's Permaculture_ i'm reading them in reverse order, almost done with the second. he's got many years of actual experience with many things, so i appreciate his writings. some things he's almost mystical about so that isn't as much a science as a ritualized practice but it seems to be working for him. This here represents a problem. The local library doesn't have "The Rebel Farmer", and even used it is way too expensive for me from Amazon. In any event, I need to clear out my backlog of reading books. The stack on the headboard could do some serious damage to me, if we had a trembler. i haven't gotten into mushroom farming, but i did enjoy the part of the book that gives that overview. if i do get into it sometime i'll be sure to read up on it. It is something I should check out. We're on the side of a hill, and there is a lot of dark enclosed space under the house. also how he talks about fruit trees and his methods. very low input, but you need a varied environment to pull it off. in a modern suburban landscape with grasses, etc and few understory plants that support beneficials it's a challenge. then you may also have to deal with neighborhood politics or town ordinances for weeds/lawn care. his main property is upland enough that he can work with microclimates and extending seasons of harvest by using the warmer downhill areas and cooler areas uphill along with using rocks, sun catchers and ponds. also the film mentioned: _The Agricultural Rebel_. Film? What film? You didn't say anything about no stinkin' film. You using Cliff Notes too? ;O) ... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning http://www.amazon.com/Against-Grain-...-Civilization/ dp /0865477132/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368981220&sr=1-4&keywords= Aga inst+the+Grain I'm about 60 pages into the book (a mere 240 pages). i finished it two nights ago. quick read. i'm not really sure what i think of it. as it is a bit dated and the enemy of popularity has turned from big-ag processor ADM to ag-chem-seed producer Monsanto. If you don't care for the murder rate of 20-30%, you probably won't like the complete genocide that the farmers wreaked on the hunter/gathers. Although farming startd 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, the full complement of wheat, barley, sheep, goats, and cows didn't really coalesce into a suite until about 5,600 years ago, near the Caucasus Mountains.They are identified by their pottery which is distinctively marked with straight lines, or as the German anthropologists called them Linearbandkeramik (LBK is the designation for these farmers who spoke Indo-European). Farming wasn't spread by adaptation, but conquest. The LBK farmers made it to the Atlantic in about 300 years, taking no prisoners. The "cave-painters" (Cro-Magnons), hunter/gaterers, last stand was in the south-west of France. The Cro-Magnon's descendants are most likely the Basque, who speak a language like no other. The book goes on to describe the encounter between the LBK, and the "Scandahoovians", which was a stalemate. A ripping good book. i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). ??????? It's the same deal, famines every 10 years. no, he writes they have evidence of 1800+ famines in about 3,000 years. that's a famine almost every year to every other year. OK, it's agreed, every other year, and we won't mention the cannibalism. Civil disobedience, thats not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. Thats our problem. -Howard Zinn well yes. we have a lot of people in jail on very minor things (non-violent offenders). What we have is more people in jail (percentage wise) than any other country in the world, 1%. Most of these people are people of color, because the law is applied disproportionately. This is the new Jim Crow, just in time for the Prison Industrial Complex. The term prisonindustrial complex (PIC) is used to attribute the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies. The term is borrowed from the militaryindustrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. he was a smart guy. And he seemed to be human. I wonder what the U.S. would have been like if Major General Smedley Butler, USMC had been President. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have argued that the Prison-Industrial Complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick yet ultimately flawed solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex More specifically see "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West. http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-I...dness/dp/15955 86431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369114986&sr=1-1&keywords=The+New+J im+Crow gah! no, i'm not going there. it's all around me already, i don't need to read more about it. We have that option, for the time being, but people of color don't. It gets shoved into their faces, like it or not. any federal or state program is always set up and will self-perpetuate once funding gets allocated and spent. that is why i think that we should make as much government as volunteer or minimum wage as possible to discourage "entrenchment" and also to make representatives selected at random instead elected by campaigns. It's always a balancing act, isn't it? From about 1940 to 1982, Mexico had a centralized government that gave rise to paying morditas (bribes) to public officials to get them to do their work, or to get the results that you wished. Since 1982, Mexico has been a Neo-Liberal government with little regulation (much as the Tea Party wish for the U.S.). The result is that human rights are in conflict with property rights. Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. - Martin Luther King, Jr. Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. -John Maynard Keynes the alternatives are demonstratably worse as already seen. socialistic adaptations to capitalism are fine to protect the elderly and the poor, but subsidies are destructive in the long haul because they distort the market signals. of course, i've already stated before what i think of taxation for pollution and making sure there is recycling and many other things. i sure know that communism isn't functional. works ok at a small scale, breaks down quickly once the group gets larger. Who would know, it has never been tried. the first few years of Christianity were supposedly communist in organisation and sharing of resources, but that devolves like any other system as soon as you put money in any large amounts into the hands of a few "leaders" or "organizers". Ah, communist with a lower case "c", not an uppercase "C". In the middle ages, at least in England, you would live in a village, and behind your house you would have your garden, but beyond the garden was the "Commons". There would be fields that were worked in common by the inhabitants of the town for the good of everyone. There were also forests where a person could hunt for game. Then came the closure laws, and everyone was forced into the factories (more or less). Capitalism seems like an extension of feudalism. Both require infinite resources. Socialism (We the People) can be corrupted, as all can see, but it is doable. First we have to get campaign financing out of private hands, and everything else should flow from that, not that vigilance won't still be required. however, i don't see any solution because any system set up still has to interface with others and that means some form of currency or government to make sure the groups don't trample each other or use false means of gain or counterfeit currencies. Regulation is needed to combat cheating. The U.S.S.R. was an oligarchy, as is the capitalistic U.S. of A. sure thing. with some regulation here or there but the regulators can be bought off with campaign money and lobbyists contributions. so we get the best government that money can buy. which is also exploitive of resources to the detriment of any sort of sustainable future. without the environmental groups doing their counter efforts we'd be in even worse shape (the USSR was much worse than us in terms of how they treated their people and resources). so even if i don't much like what we've got and it surely can be improved, it seems to be at least a bit more open and changeable than most of what i see anyplace else. [T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked [National Security], and denounce the pacifists [Whistle Blowers] for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. -Nazi Hermann Goering [Parentheses are mine] the other aspect is that we have a hugely varied culture that some other countries don't have to cope with. how to integrate so many different forces and not have it all blow up all the time... Most countries I can think of are multi-cultural, or multi-tribal. Japan is the only outlier I can think of. Maybe Korea. The Delaration of Independance says "We the People". It doesn't say I, me, mine. We are all in this together to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. which isn't the constitution, but i love the language and intent. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." It is the intent of the Constitution. The Articles of the Constitution are supposed to effectuate the above results, if they don't, then they aren't being faithful to the Constitution's intent. Nothing in the Constitution says anything about banks making money at the tax payer expense. probably covered under "promote the general welfare" intent above along with the clause which lets them regulate interstate commerce as many banks now cross state lines. as for the fed itself, that's a whole different story and the history of that is well worth reading up on sometime. it didn't say anything about income taxes or property taxes either, but once you get a governing class feeding off the rest of the people it is very hard to break that cycle of depredation. Ipso facto, it's not "promoting the general welfare". as to how to regulate banking, i don't see any good coming from the government being directly involved. i already am having severe dislikes to the feds current practices of transferring wealth from the responsible to the irresponsible, but put the fed in the government's direct control and it would be even worse as then they'd have no check on their abuse of the money supply. not that there seems to be one right now anyways. if i had a better place to put my money i'd be doing it, but the rest of the world is not looking much better either. Credit Unions keep the money local. my own answer is a different form of government, but that's not likely to ever happen. but getting back to the constitution, it's pretty amazing how many people don't even read it once in a while. The Constitution's intent has been corrupted by 250 years of shysters [shisters?] turning it into a real F.U.B.A.R. i think the current world is making up for it in some ways, but the question is if it is sustainable, and it doesn't look like it is as most are currently practicing... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. The natural, free seeds are becoming fewer, and fewer. As much as I like open pollinated seeds, I know that hybridized squash has less of a problem with mildew. Hybridized means that it is owned by somebody. Usually that somebody is Monsanto. i don't think you are right. perhaps you can find an organic source for a similar hybrid and not have to buy from Monsanto. as there are so many squash varieties you might even find something better. i keep finding seed sources way beyond what i can ever possibly use here. i don't think seed-savers are going out of business any time soon, and the expansion of farmer markets and people putting in their own gardens is also a good trend in the opposite direction. As luck would have it, I misspoke again. I was thinking that Black Beauty Zucchini was a hybrid, it isn't. Compared to Costata Romanesco and Zucchino Rampicante it has little taste, but it sure does withstand mildew. I'll have to find another example of skullduggery in high places. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. Mid 70s to mid 80s here for te last few weeks and the seedlings are jumpin' i'm glad they are coming along. It's the earliest start I've had in 15 years. Usually I don't get into the ground until the first of June. today looks pretty good for getting something done outside. Carp that Dium, baby. if i didn't need to get areas above flood stage i wouldn't be digging quite as much and having free fill to put underneath is a big help too. i could not justify spending money i don't have for 20 yards of topsoil, but i do have time and can use the exercise. my back hasn't felt this good for many years. thanks to chiropractor and being careful the past year and listening to what my body is telling me. we're trying to walk each day before gardening. so when the day is done i'm done too. I hope you make it to 60 without any chronic illnesses, otherwise it can be a real pile of shit. Good luck. heh, allergies have always been fun, motorcycle accident broke and twisted things so i have to be careful about some angles and bends and then i've had chronic back problems since i was 15. for me to say that it is doing better is a huge improvement in how things are going. The thought of getting killed on a motorcycle never bothered me. Then I discovered getting mangled. They sure are fun on a hot day in the trees. every day on the right side of the daisy roots is a day i never expected. for some reason as a kid i never expected to live past 30. having relatives with chronic lung or back troubles or diabetes i can see the way it can be. i've been through my own piles so it's just a matter of keeping on, finding what is important and working on that and not getting hung up on what i can't do. being a systems analyst means being able to break down a problem and work the parts until it comes back together again. keep the big picture in mind. My plan is trying to squeeze the last drop of pleasure out of this life. I'm down to the hard part now, which only makes it tougher. i was a bit worried by the lack of bees on the blooming honeysuckle for a few days, but they were out in force today. *whew!* we'll be planting tomatoes and peppers within the next few weeks and i'll be finding more spots for beans, beets and peas, cucumbers, squash, strawberries are blooming and the rhubarb is coming along well as are the peas and onions already planted and the beets sprouted days before i expected to see them. the challenge is keeping the melon seeds from sprouting and pushing up so much that they are pushing all the beets out of the ground. i guess that is one way to thin them... rain due this week. we'll appreciate it. the killdeer are still sitting on their eggs. busy day today. i'm due for a bit of a snooze. We had unexpected, but much needed company yesterday. Back to planting today. good luck to you and your sprouts. Peppers (28) are in. Now it's on to the squash, sunflowers, and more lettuce. Then it will be beets, onions, and the misc. The seeds for the green beans must have been too old. I'll have to try again. luckily they can be planted in series. i keep planting peas and beans as much as i can, i like the flowers and foliage as much as the edibles. songbird Onwards, and downwards. Have a good'un. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#73
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: two more books for the reading list: Sepp Holzer, _The Rebel Farmer_ and _Sepp Holzer's Permaculture_ i'm reading them in reverse order, almost done with the second. he's got many years of actual experience with many things, so i appreciate his writings. some things he's almost mystical about so that isn't as much a science as a ritualized practice but it seems to be working for him. Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
#74
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: songbird wrote: Billy wrote: two more books for the reading list: Sepp Holzer, _The Rebel Farmer_ and _Sepp Holzer's Permaculture_ i'm reading them in reverse order, almost done with the second. he's got many years of actual experience with many things, so i appreciate his writings. some things he's almost mystical about so that isn't as much a science as a ritualized practice but it seems to be working for him. This here represents a problem. The local library doesn't have "The Rebel Farmer", and even used it is way too expensive for me from Amazon. In any event, I need to clear out my backlog of reading books. The stack on the headboard could do some serious damage to me, if we had a trembler. perhaps a fault of an ex-librarian is to keep recommending books as i come across them. i'm adding them to my notes too so they can be found later or used by others to add to their own reading lists. things are working ok here, most libraries are interconnected in Michigan now (even without much funding from the state these days) using several catalog systems (and a mass delivery system so they don't have to pay postage per item) and then there is the national OCLC system we can also use if we're not too crazy with the number of requests. i haven't gotten into mushroom farming, but i did enjoy the part of the book that gives that overview. if i do get into it sometime i'll be sure to read up on it. It is something I should check out. We're on the side of a hill, and there is a lot of dark enclosed space under the house. for most of what he's doing he's using either logs (he says fresh cut are best because they are already moist) or straw bales, left outside, the logs partially sunk in the ground (providing more even moisture and trace nutrients). takes a while (1-2 years before fruiting bodies appear) to get going but productive for years depending upon the type of wood used. also how he talks about fruit trees and his methods. very low input, but you need a varied environment to pull it off. in a modern suburban landscape with grasses, etc and few understory plants that support beneficials it's a challenge. then you may also have to deal with neighborhood politics or town ordinances for weeds/lawn care. his main property is upland enough that he can work with microclimates and extending seasons of harvest by using the warmer downhill areas and cooler areas uphill along with using rocks, sun catchers and ponds. also the film mentioned: _The Agricultural Rebel_. Film? What film? You didn't say anything about no stinkin' film. You using Cliff Notes too? ;O) i should have written that "also a film was mentioned". ... Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization by Richard Manning .... i enjoyed parts of it. i have to conceed the poorer health and starvation of some peoples under the version of agriculture much practiced in the past. Famines every 10 years don't auger well for agriculturalists. It's way past time to start humanities return to sustainable environmental practices. It's probably an impossible dream with greed intrenched in government. wait until you get to the part where he talks about China and famines (p. 71). ??????? It's the same deal, famines every 10 years. no, he writes they have evidence of 1800+ famines in about 3,000 years. that's a famine almost every year to every other year. OK, it's agreed, every other year, and we won't mention the cannibalism. as someone noted, "it's hard to get a good night's sleep." in that type of company. .... The term is borrowed from the militaryindustrial complex President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of in his famous 1961 farewell address. he was a smart guy. And he seemed to be human. I wonder what the U.S. would have been like if Major General Smedley Butler, USMC had been President. Ike was a politician, i think Butler rubbed too many the wrong way. Such groups include corporations that contract prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activists have argued that the Prison-Industrial Complex as perpetuating a belief that imprisonment is a quick yet ultimately flawed solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex More specifically see "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West. http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-I...dness/dp/15955 86431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369114986&sr=1-1&keywords=The+New+J im+Crow gah! no, i'm not going there. it's all around me already, i don't need to read more about it. We have that option, for the time being, but people of color don't. It gets shoved into their faces, like it or not. unfortunate and worth fighting against. .... Who would know, it has never been tried. the first few years of Christianity were supposedly communist in organisation and sharing of resources, but that devolves like any other system as soon as you put money in any large amounts into the hands of a few "leaders" or "organizers". Ah, communist with a lower case "c", not an uppercase "C". In the middle ages, at least in England, you would live in a village, and behind your house you would have your garden, but beyond the garden was the "Commons". There would be fields that were worked in common by the inhabitants of the town for the good of everyone. There were also forests where a person could hunt for game. Then came the closure laws, and everyone was forced into the factories (more or less). Capitalism seems like an extension of feudalism. Both require infinite resources. Socialism (We the People) can be corrupted, as all can see, but it is doable. First we have to get campaign financing out of private hands, and everything else should flow from that, not that vigilance won't still be required. capitalism does not require infinite resources, i dunno where you get that idea from. socialism is fine in some parts. i still believe that freedom should be primary in that many systems should be allowed under a broader form of government and those that wish to form socialist organizations and societies within should be allowed as long as their members are allowed freedom to leave if they wish. an age of consent. some written bylaws and a coming of age ceremony would be good. i still haven't had much of a chance to see how the Amish have managed to become the society they have in the USoA and how they are treated in terms of taxes and such, but an interesting side topic for the future... however, i don't see any solution because any system set up still has to interface with others and that means some form of currency or government to make sure the groups don't trample each other or use false means of gain or counterfeit currencies. Regulation is needed to combat cheating. which means enforcement and that means enforcers, taxes, jails, or something meaningful as a deterrent... which pretty much doesn't seem to exist now. ....huge snip, too many tangents... as to how to regulate banking, i don't see any good coming from the government being directly involved. i already am having severe dislikes to the feds current practices of transferring wealth from the responsible to the irresponsible, but put the fed in the government's direct control and it would be even worse as then they'd have no check on their abuse of the money supply. not that there seems to be one right now anyways. if i had a better place to put my money i'd be doing it, but the rest of the world is not looking much better either. Credit Unions keep the money local. i have a fair amount of my savings in a few credit unions. unfortunately, they can bloat just like any other organization. .... When the "free market" reigns, corporations will own the seeds for our food, the rights to the our water, and charge us rent for the clothes on our backs. Of course the problem may be moot if Global Warming gets away from us, or we meet another Chicxulub asteroid. they don't own my seeds and i'll gladly share. The natural, free seeds are becoming fewer, and fewer. As much as I like open pollinated seeds, I know that hybridized squash has less of a problem with mildew. Hybridized means that it is owned by somebody. Usually that somebody is Monsanto. i don't think you are right. perhaps you can find an organic source for a similar hybrid and not have to buy from Monsanto. as there are so many squash varieties you might even find something better. i keep finding seed sources way beyond what i can ever possibly use here. i don't think seed-savers are going out of business any time soon, and the expansion of farmer markets and people putting in their own gardens is also a good trend in the opposite direction. As luck would have it, I misspoke again. I was thinking that Black Beauty Zucchini was a hybrid, it isn't. Compared to Costata Romanesco and Zucchino Rampicante it has little taste, but it sure does withstand mildew. I'll have to find another example of skullduggery in high places. no shortage there. putting on some fertilizer, and then some potting soil, and lastly the plant, with what ever potting soil is necessary to make the ground flush. Today is sunflowers, lettuce, and potting some herbs. i've been digging and burying more shredded bark and wood pieces and then after filling it back in and then topping it off with soil that is actually topsoil (and not clay). into that went about 220 onions of three types and a small patch of turnips. Ah, to be young again. today is a day of r-n-r. very humid and in the 80s. Mid 70s to mid 80s here for te last few weeks and the seedlings are jumpin' i'm glad they are coming along. It's the earliest start I've had in 15 years. Usually I don't get into the ground until the first of June. we're having another rainy day here, which is good as we've been a little too dry, but i'm not getting more gardens planted. we went looking for raincoats yesterday and the stores have already moved their stocks into summer and fall items. today looks pretty good for getting something done outside. Carp that Dium, baby. finished planting the areas i got raised up last week. peas, beets, a few onions, snap peas, soup peas. no beans in yet. i think i can get some of those planted tomorrow if the ground isn't too soggy. .... I hope you make it to 60 without any chronic illnesses, otherwise it can be a real pile of shit. Good luck. heh, allergies have always been fun, motorcycle accident broke and twisted things so i have to be careful about some angles and bends and then i've had chronic back problems since i was 15. for me to say that it is doing better is a huge improvement in how things are going. The thought of getting killed on a motorcycle never bothered me. Then I discovered getting mangled. They sure are fun on a hot day in the trees. dirt-biking was fun as a kid, but my downfall is that i like to go too fast. also why i refused to take up downhill skiing. i just knew that would be a bad idea. snowshoes are about the right speed for me. my brother hit a deer at 60mph on his motorcycle. he came out of it with some bad spots of road rash, but the gal on the back had quite a bit more damage. i should have learned from that but many years later i wanted to try one of my own. learned the hard way that they weren't for me. every day on the right side of the daisy roots is a day i never expected. for some reason as a kid i never expected to live past 30. having relatives with chronic lung or back troubles or diabetes i can see the way it can be. i've been through my own piles so it's just a matter of keeping on, finding what is important and working on that and not getting hung up on what i can't do. being a systems analyst means being able to break down a problem and work the parts until it comes back together again. keep the big picture in mind. My plan is trying to squeeze the last drop of pleasure out of this life. grab each day by the balls... gently... I'm down to the hard part now, which only makes it tougher. hang in there and try to ignore the BS. sometimes happiness comes in small victories and unexpected places. like seeing a sundog or a pea plant sprouting and flowering. .... Peppers (28) are in. Now it's on to the squash, sunflowers, and more lettuce. Then it will be beets, onions, and the misc. The seeds for the green beans must have been too old. I'll have to try again. luckily they can be planted in series. i keep planting peas and beans as much as i can, i like the flowers and foliage as much as the edibles. Onwards, and downwards. Have a good'un. you too! happy dibbling... songbird |
#75
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OT but a welcome bit of brightness
In article ,
songbird wrote: Ah, communist with a lower case "c", not an uppercase "C". In the middle ages, at least in England, you would live in a village, and behind your house you would have your garden, but beyond the garden was the "Commons". There would be fields that were worked in common by the inhabitants of the town for the good of everyone. There were also forests where a person could hunt for game. Then came the closure laws, and everyone was forced into the factories (more or less). Capitalism seems like an extension of feudalism. Both require infinite resources. Socialism (We the People) can be corrupted, as all can see, but it is doable. First we have to get campaign financing out of private hands, and everything else should flow from that, not that vigilance won't still be required. capitalism does not require infinite resources, i dunno where you get that idea from. You sell one, and buy materials to make 2. You sell 2, and buy materials to make 4. You sell 4, and buy materials to make 8, ect. Pretty soon you are looking at very big numbers. Capitalism is founded on growth. Even with planned obsolescence, an infinite amount of widgets requires an infinite amount of resources. I'll be back. -- Remember Rachel Corrie http://www.rachelcorrie.org/ Welcome to the New America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA736oK9FPg |
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