Decision 08

I've been sort of bemused by the current moniker of the upcoming election. It's as if the very idea of an actual fair honest to goodness vote is so embattled, that the powers that be are just calling it a decision this year. Anyway, as I have no television, I just watched 9 consecutive Youtube clips of the recent debate between this year's democratic candidates. Part of me doesn't like any of them and is depressed at the thought that the slickest, best funded candidate will probably get chosen and won't do anything that seriously challenges the last 50 years of American foreign and energy policy, by which I mean, the policy of enabling big business to do whatever it wants at whatever human and environmental costs nessecary. You can trace this pattern of behavior back at least to World War Two, and presidents of both parties have enabled it to the point that I'm almost over hoping for anything different out of this year's candidates.

On the other hand, I was pleased to see some measure of actual candor among some of the candidates, (that guy from Alaska, HILARIOUS) although, this immediately caused me to think, "That guy is totally unelectable." I mean, he is; despite his courage in deriding US foreign policy as a war policy, cursing twice, and saying at one point, and I quote, "we've scared the bejeezus out of them" in reference to Iran. Then there was sweet little Denis Kucinich who I think is, among other things, too short to be elected president. There's a reason he's the darling of the activist community. This guy is totally unswayed by the reality of the campaign universe. For this reason, he says all sorts of things that are totally true and obvious, but which other candidates won't say for fear of sounding too extreme, like the fact that we're in the Middle East for oil, and the fact that Dick Cheney deserves to be impeached, which I think he probably does. Part of that reality however, is the fact that people simply won't elect a president who doesn't make it clear that he has no problem shooting people and blowing up other countries. What makes this even more difficult for me, and renders me unable to revert to the convenience of indignation, is that I can't reconcile this conflict for myself. I desperately want a world where the US and it's business partners leave everyone else alone and start living ethically. Where we pull back our industrial colonization of the third world and all those angry young men say to themselves, "cool, now I can get on with it" and decide we're not worth fighting and quit blowing people up and everything's fine. At this point, however, I somehow doubt the response to a new, less hostile U.S. presence in the world would be this kind. Alot of people have suffered tremendously at the hands of US economic interests, and unfortunately, a soft cuddly America would probably, rather than warming the hearts of all those people, just invite them to give us what we deserve, which is to be blown off the map. That's really what it comes down to. Enemies of the United States are real. We created them, and they have very legitimate reasons for hating us. Given the opportunity, they will kill us and we would totally deserve it. That said, I don't want to die, and most of the people voting next year don't either, so Dennis Kucinich doesn't have a chance, despite the fact that his vision for a non-violent, humanitarian America is precisely what we need. As for Barak and Hillary, eh. I am officially over Barak. I don't think he offers anything unique policy-wise. All of the lesser-known candidates had at least one moment each where they impressed me with their command of a particular issue. So, at least there is some intellect in the field this year. I particularly remember agreeing with that guy with the creepily white hair who made the point that the real threat of terrorism is the threat of nation-less enemies and that is another reason why diplomacy with existing nations is so important. That's fine. In fact, every candidate seemed much happier talking about Iraq and national defense than any other issue, especially the environment.

The next president has to take environmental issues seriously. They must be treated with the same urgency as the War of Terror has been treated heretofor. None of the candidates impressed me with anywhere near that kind of urgency. In fact, several of them took their time allotted to answer an environment question to talk some more about Iraq. None of them has any sense of the systemic changes that are required in America to combat both the problem of global warming, and impending energy scarcity. Some lame bill that requires a tiny increase in the amount of ethanol available in this country falls pathetically short of what's needed. How about reinvigorating car alternatives in this country like public transt in cities and rail travel nationwide? How about making suburban zoning illegal? Alas, I don't think it's going to happen. Furthermore, most of the progress that's been made on any important issue in the last fifty years has been locally generated. That said, I think I'll just ignore politics altogether this year in favor of seeing what I can do on my own, unless of course, the candidates keep cursing during the debates and otherwise entertaining me.

more news on things that are growing

So todayI can report a most victorious accidental discovery. I was on my way to place an order for some seeds when I came across an entry in Johhny's herb catelogue: chickweed. I had heard of chickweed and looked at the picture. I gasped, looked again, looked up another picture, ran out into my yard, looked up another picture and I can say with confidence that Chickweed is growing all over my yard. It's just this soft-spoken weed, very unobtrusive, that I have been foolishly pulling up and putting in the compost whenever I'm out in the yard looking for something to do. Turns out, this stuff is basically magic. I looked it up and it is reportedly great for insect bites and skin irritation, as well as good internally for circulation and kidney support. You can also eat it on salad like spinach. Yay! One more excuse not to repare the lawnmower! Why on earth would I want to mow down the free medicine growing in my yard? I am also happy to report that I finally spotted a bonafide honey bee in the back yard yesterday. This was in addition to about seven wasps, two bumblebees, one stink bug, a shiny looking beetle tht may or may not be eating the mustard greens, possibly one cabbage moth, possibly one robber fly, definately one squash bug, and I think three hover flies, in addition to the standard army of roly polys and fire ants, and a couple of spectacular butterflys that have been visiting the wisteria. There are also dozens of some bug or other that I still cannot identify. All I know about this bug is that I saw one eating an aphid on my sweet potatoes last August so I know these bugs have my best interest at heart. I am still waiting patiently for a lady bug, just one lady bug, to join the backyard party, but am nonetheless heartened by the diversity of beneficial insects in the garden. The plan of course, is to go all summer with no need for pesticides, even organic ones. We'll see what happens when the squash get bigger, with their requisite vine borer woes, but I am still faithful that mother nature is perfect and will help a sister out if I don't go spraying poison everywhere. Nathanael and I have eaten at least one home-grown, organic vegetable every day for about two weeks now. I must say, I'm getting a little tired of the mustard greens, but soon we'll have our english peas, and some strawberries. We will have chard, about one and a half carrots, and the collard greens and lettuce are still going strong. Then it's on to the squash and tomatoes and the humidity and 112 degree days and maybe by then I won't be so happy about all this gardening.

Speaking of growing things, I watched a blurb about peak oil the other day that actually made it to CNBC. I was shocked to see a mainstream media source actually giving air time to a problem, that just last week I heard flat-out denied on NPR. I won't spend time talking about it here as there are plenty of better-informed sources on the web concerning this issue. I was reminded however, that we have very little time indeed to prepare for what will, I believe, be a world-changing event, a process that will change all of our lives permanently. Nathanael and I talk about it sometimes and I still have no idea what would be worse in the event of an oil-supply collapse: stay intown with all the crazed, scary people, or be out on a piece of land somewhere isolated from help. I think there's no way to predict which scenario will be the best, so I console myself with the idea that as long as I am continually building important survival skills, I am doing the best I can to prepare for whatever is coming. Skills are something that noone can take from you. So, no matter where I end up, I will be ok if I know how to take care of myself. I've decided that the next project will be learning how to make cottage cheese. They say it's among the easiest to make, and it doesn't require anything I don't already have, except rennet. I've read of some plants that produce rennet alternatives, and that might be a possibility. There are also cheeses, like the Indian paneer, that require nothing to curdle the milk but vinegar, so that is worth trying out as well. After that it's yogurt which is supposed to be easy to make as well. Maybe I'll have some made in time to eat with all the free blackberries that are currently growing along every single street in Mobile. The south ain't so bad after all.

Mom and the Apocalypse

Sometimes my mom is really funny. Like today she calls me to tell me I have some "unclaimed property" being held by the state of Tennessee. Images race through my mind of 20 acres of beautiful farm land I forgot about or maybe, a treasure chest full of gold. It's actually more like a check for 23 dollars from this one stock my Mimi bought me when I was little. That's great. I'll take it. We're talking about it and Mom says that sometimes it's a person's last paycheck before they moved away or a long-lost relative a person never knew she had who left them a zillion dollars. "Wish I had one", says mom and I burst our laughing. She and I never developed that friend thing that, apparently, lots of girls develop with their mothers after they move out of the house and no longer have to confront mom with their burgeoning sexuality. We still essentially misunderstand each other all the time, so those rare moments of shared laughter are a treat. Sometimes I think about the future of the US economy and the impending petroleum crisis, an event in which I, for whatever reason, have a faith bordering on religious. I think about my mom and dad and what on earth they will do in a dog-eat-dog post-apocalyptic end-times economy. Shit, I barely know what I will do.

Today I was looking through the classifieds for a new job. Nathanael and I compromised yesterday and decided that, in exchange for him agreeing to join the peace corps with me for two years after we sell the house, I will work and try to make some actual money for the next two years while we do have the house and the bills and all that (oh yeah, and for the rest of our lives after we get out of the peace corps). I will have to put my entirely cash-less lifestyle on hold till we actually don't need cash anymore. Fair enough.

There is something communal in the experience of job-hunting I think. Where once all men knew what it was like to hunt a deer or a wild boar; now it is the stealthy decent job that tests our wits and reflexes. Where once every woman required the discernment to tell an edible root from a poisonous one, now we must be armed with the ability to recognized the distinction between "must have organizational skills and follow-through" and "must be good with hands and ambitious". The pages full of tiny boxes with tinier type seem so promising, so full of possibilities until I actually scrunch up my nose and read them.

I have a couple of good prospects, but the time of tense anticipation is upon me. I am mourning what will prove to be the loss of my blessed state of semi-employment. Time to write, clean the house, work on a hobby. I am sort of terrified by the choice I've just made. "Putting it on hold" is the death knell of many a dream of many an alternative lifestyle. What will happen? Will I forget what I wanted? Will I be bogged down till I'm 50-something and can't relate to my daughter and just wish to god I had a relative I never knew I had who I just found out died and left me a zillion dollars? Maybe my faith in a future economic chaos is the latest excuse to rebel against what must necessarily be a work-a-day life full of glum responsibilities and mediocre health. If that's the case so be it. I'll take any excuse I can find to maintain some small shreds of idealism as I get older.

Our reasoning is certainly different, but now that I think about it, Mom deserves a little admiration on the subject of choosing one's life's work. At 50-something, she's eschewed a career that made her pretty good money as an accountant and now works in a daycare with little children because that's what she loves. She doesn't make much money, a serious issue as she approaches retirement age, but she doesn't care. I see the charm in what she does. I visited the daycare once and was shocked by the bizarre, but pleasant feeling of being surrounded by short, curious, messy, adorable, 2-year-old people. Now that I think about it a little bit more, this experience has probably thoroughly prepared her for all manner of future chaos. Maybe I do have a relative I didn't know existed. Seriously though, it would be nice if she felt like giving me a zillion dollars.

Woes and the 00's

So it's six hours till the beginning of another year and it seems a convenient time to be a little retrospective. We've experienced 6 out of 10 of the 00 decade and it is thus non-too-early to begin conceptualizing the decade that is/was. What will it have been? What flavor was the zeitgeist? What will be said about the national character, the collective unconscious, all of that?

At a time when culture is more homoginized than ever before, I can't help but begin by noting how diverse America still is- even within my own family. I should note that one might call this year, for me, The Year of the Soapbox. Time spent working in the nonprofit sector and for an organic farm has opened my eyes to serious, and seemingly obvious economic and ethical problems facing this country. Among my generation, at least in certain circles, awareness of these problems seems high. When I say problems I'm thinking of America's fragile, globally dependent economy, rampant (maniacal) over-consumption and the resulting ill health of the population. I'm thinking of a food system that is toxifying and unsustainable. I'm thinking of car-culture and the suburban way of life that is both culturally barren and incredibly wasteful of precious resources. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Time spent with friends in the city makes me feel as if tides are turning. I see a rebirth of good urbanism, economic and social diversity, a drive to use green transportation and support local, sustainable economic systems. I think to myself that soon, everyone will be on the band wagon. A quick trip through Atlanta's northern suburbs on the way to visit my parents reminds me that things are not so simple. The ex-urban housing boom, even in its now-dwindling form, still far outpaces the urban one. Walmart is finding a way to creep into new urban markets that, once unattractive, now promise profits thanks to the efforts of pioneering small businesses. Strip mall after strip mall is going up on the virgin farmland around my parents' small town. When I'm at home I always try to "convert" my conservative father. He's a thoughtful Christian, and I believe a good man. Yet I can't seem to sell him on what, to me, seem such obvious moral imperatives. I ask him how he feels about the strip malls and he just explains, with a matter-of-factness that is utterly deflating, how convenient it is to have all the shopping. I ask him doesn't it bother him that they just keep widening the road instead of designing the city to better accomodate the growing population. He replys, again with that murderous matter-of-factness, that so many choices cannot be compatable with the population of a small/medium sized town without everyone driving their cars. In many ways he is a typical American, himself raised in the suburbs, taking much about our affluent, car-dependent lifestyle for granted. This year I didn't bring up our regular argument: George Bush and the war. I should note for fairness that in many ways he is not a typical American. He hates waste and over-consumption. Indeed, he is one of the least materialistic people I know and I'd like to think I inherited some of his strong critical thinking skills.

So, on the eve of 2007, I believe that America is still capable of a great deal of diversity of opinions and values. My father and I come from essentially the same place: white, middleclass suburbia and yet we see the state of the world in very different ways and have come to value very different things. Perhaps this is simply the typical generation gap but it is still an interesting place from which to try to analyze the state of the nation. Maybe it is reducable to the now cliche red state/ blue state dichotomy. Maybe it is the consequence of the even more simplistic post-modern relativism. I'm not sure, but I do believe that the 2000's can be characterized, as many times before have, by a dominant culture and a counter culture. I think their differentiating feature is, and Marx would agree with me on this, differing modes of production, or at least, differing ideals of production. Or maybe differing understandings of production in general. The dominant culture sees consumption as essentially morally neutral. Despite lipservice to religious feelings against gluttony, they no longer recognize themselves as consuming way more of the earth's resources than is healthy or just. This consumption has reached the level of mania in the 00's and will be the defining characteristic of this era. I believe that one source of the motivation for consumption mania is the comprehension, on some level, that "the end is near". That is to say, that it can't go on like this much longer. Either we'll blow ourselves up, destroy the planet, or poison ourselves with this lifestyle; whichever one comes first. People are desperate to ignore this truth, so on they shop, even if they must go into debt to do it.

The dominant culture is so extreme that it is producing a growing backlash, a counterculture, that is trying desperately to live differently. The counterculture has many, many faces: urban bike kids, organic farmers, savvy green entrepreneurs, New Urban planners, gen x mothers who are leading the trend to eat organic because they care about their children's health. Added to this are scores of young people who are trying to pick up the threads of the past, and learn skills for producing their own useful goods. Many of these skills are in danger of being lost forever as the generation of my grandfather begins to die of old age. The indie craft movement is one example of this effort.

So that's the general script for our lives right now. Technology is casting an interesting glow on the drama as it unfolds, offering great potential to either side of the conflict. I believe that, by the end of the 00's life will have changed even more dramatically than it has in the past 6 years. I also believe that many of those changes will play out pretty messily, and unfortunately, violently. Hopefully, by the time this is history, I'll still be around to join the debate.

My Superbackyard

If you walk out into my back yard, the first thing you'll see is my garlic patch. It's the pride and joy of the back yard, the only thing that seems to be growing well. It is not to be outdone however, by the courageous collard green that is growing, against all odds, in the winter shade of our southern fence. Last evening I was kicking around, cleaning out the frozen marigolds and tomato plants, depressed at the thought of the one meal that collard plant would provide. Not even a whole meal, a third of one meal, as payment for my exertions in the heat of august. I was annoyed that my sugar snaps had, in the past 4 months, offered exactly one blossom. That's exactly one sugar snap pea, not exactly a positive impact on the grocery bill. I considered giving it all up and putting in some hedges I'd never have to fool with again.

Today I've regained some of my idealism. I walked out in the tender morning sun to see that my little Calemondin Orange had perked up from last night's doldrums in response to a watering. I thought about my bay bush and how I needed to give my mother some of the leaves for Christmas so she can cook with them. I thought, what if everyone in this town put in a zuchinni each summer? What if everyone had a little dill and parsley in a pot next to their kitchen? What if everyone took out a pine tree and replaced it with a pear tree or satsuma?

Let's go even further. Every poor neighborhood in America, every government housing project, ought to plant exclusively fruit trees. It is idiotic, when considering the nutrition problems we face as a country, not to consider this obvious solution. Why do they put in an azalea when they could put in a blueberry instead? Every town where their are hungry people could be transformed into the garden of Eden.

It seems to me that most people in modern America have become so removed from any form of the agrarian lifestyle, that they cannot even concieve of producing their own food. They cannot imagine actually touching the dirt from which their carrots and potatoes come. They no longer actually realize that their potato came out of the dirt at all. I'm reminded of my friend Wendy's 5-year-old son Nathan who vehemently refused to eat the popcorn I made for him on the stove because he had only ever eaten it out of a microwave bag. This broken conceptual link probably makes it incredibly easy for people to trash the place without any sense of the consequences. It also makes it easy for most people to think that the only way to get food is to buy it. As a result, people subconsciously imbue money with the power to feed and sustain them instead of the earth. This misappropriation of the power to produce from the earth to human wealth is extended nowadays to every other product Americans consume now that manufacturing is almost nonexistant in this country.

I miss alot of things about the city I used to inhabit. I miss the culture, the sense of being part of a teeming organism, the variety of people and activities. But one thing the city doesn't have, one thing I love about semi-rural southern Alabama, is the awareness among the average person, of the ability to produce food. Half the people I know here have some kind of citrus tree in their yard. Our proximity to the bay makes fresh-caught fish a common luxury. The drive to my job at a farm took me past cotton and peanut fields and farm markets whose offerings changed with the seasons. I believe that when the inevitable happens- some serious economic crisis that severely affects our fuel-dependent food supply-places like this will fair most successfully. I also believe that, in the mean time, my little collard green and handful of garlic is a step in the right direction. It's a tiny dent in my grocery bill, that, multiplied by every person in this country who has room to grow some kind of food (everybody) could make a huge difference in the way food (and every other good) is distributed in this country. It is a tiny step toward ending the dirty little secret of American life: that we don't and don't know how to produce anything of value for ourselves, a deficiency which leads, no doubt to the histeria of imperialist war and the willful ignorance of a distribution system that causes so much suffering around the world.

So I'm an idealist again and tommorrow I'll plant some e. coli-free spinach where the marigolds used to be.

The Flavor of E. coli Part II

I think it is useful, while my vast audience still has Taco Bell on the brain, to discuss the related web of issues a little more. Nameley: most people get their lettuce or green onions or whatever from the same place: California. What is it like out there in a lettuce patch? First of all, there are no cute bunny rabbits hopping about stealing a nibble. Large corporate farms have some things in common: the soil is essentially sterile and supports vegetable growth only by being bathed continuously in toxic, petroleum and natural gas-based fertilizers and pesticides. Who is going out into that mess to harvest my lettuce? Who else, but underpaid migrant labor (who, by the way, have no emotional investment in the quality of the product. I wouldn't if I were them). I suspect that, although bound to by law, farm managers often don't provide onsite bathrooms for their workers. Now, poo is not the only source of E.coli. It can come from farm animals and some other sources, but clearly, the scale of these veggie operations is lending itself to a lack of quality control.

People ought to be shocked when they realize that 1) they are eating food the origin of which is completely unknown, and 2) when one source of spinich or onions or whatever is called into question, they have no other option but to avoid buying the stuff all together. What we have here, is an incredibly fragile food system. If it was disrupted for a week, people would start starving.

Why, when California spinach showed evidence of contamination, did we not simply buy good old Wisconsin spinach or Maryland Spinach or Arkansas spinach? Or better yet, why not buy spinach froma local grower or get it from your own back yard? Oh, I see, because none of those options actually exist for most people. Spinach is essentially a luxury item. But what will happen if some staple food becomes contaminated with somethin or other? What will happen when we can no longer ship all of our food 1,500 miles across the country on a daily basis? A more plausible scenario in the near future is that this system will not so much become impossible as it will become unaffordable. When this finally happens, there are a couple of things I don't want to witness: the look of a conventional spinach field the year after they cancel the growing operation. Rolling back all that artificial chemical fertility will no doubt leave a field of lifeless sand, incapable of supporting anything, even microbes. The other thing I don't want to see is the look on people's faces when they realize that they took all the available farm land in Baldwin County Alabama and built subdivisions and Taco Bells on it.