Green Barbarians

The Maisie Project (Ongoing)

2011-12-20T13:33:00.000-08:00

The Maisie Project (ongoing)

December 20, 2011 in Maisie (edit)

Maisie contemplating her next drink.

Maisie has had spay-induced incontinence ever since she was spayed at the age of 5 months. She had a very, very difficult recovery from her surgery, which was quite surprising to me, because over the years I’ve had four puppies spayed, and Maisie is the first one who’s had any trouble after the surgery. I first realized that Maisie had a real problem when we attended obedience class for the first time after she was spayed, and all of a sudden she sprang a serious leak, and was urinating uncontrollably while walking in the arena. I was embarrassed, and so was Maisie, but mostly I was worried.

The next morning I brought Maisie in to the vet, who prescribed hormones. The hormones didn’t do the trick, so I did some online research, and ended up buying herbal “prostate pills,” which contained pumpkin seed extract and Saw Palmetto, because they are supposed to strengthen the urethra, the weak link in spay-induced incontinence. The weakness is caused by a lack of estrogen after the removal of the ovaries. Before I bought the pills, I contacted our vet, and asked her opinion; she thought it was worth a try and that none of the herbal ingredients in the prostate pills would be harmful to a dog. So I started Maisie on prostate pills, one each morning. That seemed to help, for a while, but then I needed to increase her dosage to one pill in the morning and one at night. When the synthetic estrogen pills were used up, I didn’t buy more, and Maisie was fine for a while, but then when she got stressed out at obedience class by a mean dog, she leaked again, so I did more online research, contacted our vet, and then added in a very low dose B12 pill, to help Maisie cope with stress. Luckily for me, Maisie is a dog, not a cat, because dogs are very easy to dose with pills: just cover the pill with butter and make the dog beg for it. Now if I forget to give Maisie her “nummy” in the morning or evening, she reminds me.

Now we are well into snow season, and Maisie has a really bad habit of eating phenomenal quantities of snow when she plays outside. This ridiculous quantity of liquid puts a huge strain on her wimpy urethra, so now I am trying one more thing: I have made a “Maisie balm” for her out of coconut oil, with essential oils of vetiver, Coleus forskolii, and lavender. The vetiver is antifungal and antibiotic; the C. forskolii thickens the skin and enhances the action of other biologically active substances; and the lavender is very, very strongly estrogenic. I have been applying this balm to Maisie’s “lady parts” every morning for a few weeks. (Yes, I admit it, I am molesting my dog!) The jury is still out as to whether or not the balm is working.

This morning Maisie was not hungry when she woke up, and refused her breakfast. This made me worry a bit, because unlike our Kiwi The Iron-Tummed, Maisie has a delicate stomach. When Kiwi swallows bits of Frisbee, they go right through her with no problem, and the only way we know that she’s swallowed anything untoward is by looking at her Technicolor poops. Maisie, on the other hand, ended up at the vet getting X-rayed after swallowing a single piece of Frisbee, because her digestive system just couldn’t handle it.

So, this morning I ended up doing more research on the digestive systems of dogs, and found an excellent site where a holistic vet explained that dogs and cats don’t actually produce enough digestive enzymes on their own to do an effective job of digesting their food. These carnivores evolved eating raw food, including intestines, an utilize enzymes that other creatures have produced. In the absence of these recycled intestinal enzymes, dogs and cats may have intestinal discomfort caused by inefficient digestion. Of course, the vet was selling specially formulated digestive enzymes for pets. For a mere $34 a month, Maisie could have improved digestion and health. Well, unfortunately, I don’t happen to have a spare $408 plus shipping and handling for a year’s worth of Maisie digestive pills. What I do have is a really large population of indoor composting worms. I looked up research on the enzymes in the digestive tracts of earthworms, and learned that the enzymes in worms are the same as the digestive enzymes in mammals. So, this morning, instead of the breakfast that she wasn’t interested in anyway, Maisie got a lovely little snack of half a dozen worms with a raw egg broken over them. YUM!

I’ll keep you posted.

Newtsie Helps Put Kindergartners to Work

2011-12-14T09:03:00.000-08:00

In celebration of Newt Gingrich’s brilliant proposal to set small, impoverished children to janitorial work in their own schools, thus, no doubt putting some of their own parents out of work, I present the following:

1) Excerpt from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Slightly amended to bring it up to date. I am pretty sure that Dickens would approve the very slight changes: “Scrooge” to “Gingrich.” Union Workhouses” to “jails.” “The Treadmill” and the “Poor Law” deleted, since I could not come up with a relevant equivalent that a modern-day American Scrooge would actually support.)

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Gingrich,” said the gentlemen, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds and thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Gingrich.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the jails?” demanded Gingrich. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say that they were not…”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Gingrich. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Gingrich replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Gingrich. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
If they would rather die,” said Gingrich, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population…”
(And if the poor won’t do Gingrich the favor of dying quietly, unobtrusively and modestly, yet he is putting forth no ideas as to what to do with all the rabble as it is evicted from its modest dwellings, may I suggest that Mr. Gingrich cast his porcine eyes over this brilliant proposal by Dr. Jonathon Swift? The only other technique that makes any sense involves a great waste of perfectly good long pork.)

2) Excerpt from Dr. Jonathon Swift’s “A Modest Proposal; For Preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country,
and for making them beneficial to the publick.” 1729

“I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation….
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast…
There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, How this number shall be reared, and provided for? which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses…
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.
I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter…
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children…”

3) Most adults are incapable of understanding, much less following, the rules, OSHA regulations, and necessary techniques necessary in order to use cleaning products safely in a school. Many kindergartners have trouble getting their milk cartons open before their lunch “hour” is over. Does Newt really think a kindergartner could read and understand the MSDS for a floor stripper or a toilet bowl cleaner? Do he really think a kindergartner could properly outfit herself with the appropriate goggles, gloves, and respirator required for safe application of cleaning chemicals? Does he really think there are such things as protective equipment sized appropriately for a kindergartner? Does Newt really think? Or does he just have indigestion?

Here is the MSDS for a toilet bowl cleaner sold for janitorial use in schools:
———————————————————————————————————————- This MSDS complies with OSHA’S Hazard Communication Standard 29 CFR 1910.1200 and OSHA Form 174
IDENTITY AND MANUFACTURER’S INFORMATION
NFPA Rating: Health-1; Flammability-2; Reactivity-0; Special- -
HMIS Rating: Health-1; Flammability-2; Reactivity-0; Personal Protection-B
Manufacturer’s Name: Amrep, Inc.
Address: 990 Industrial Park Dr.
Address: Marietta, GA 30062
DOT Hazard Classification: NON-REGULATED
(In containers less than 119 gallons capacity: GROUND DOMESTIC)
Identity (trade name as used on label):
MISTY CRYSTAL CLEAR DUST MOP TREATMENT
Solvent Degreaser
Prepared: 03/01/05 Prepared By: IB
MSDS Number: B00811 Revision – 11
Information Calls: (770)422-2071
EMERGENCY RESPONSE NUMBER: 1-800-255-3924
NOTICE: JUDGEMENT BASED ON INDIRECT TEST DATA
SECTION 1 – MATERIAL IDENTIFICATION AND INFORMATION
COMPONENTS-CHEMICAL NAMES AND COMMON NAMES
(Hazardous Components 1% or greater; Carcinogens 0.1% or greater)
CAS Number
SARA
III LIST
OSHA PEL
(ppm)
ACGIH
TLV (ppm)
Carcinogen
Ref. Source **
PARAFFINIC, NAPHTHENIC SOLVENT
(HYDROTREATED PETROLEUM DISTILLATE)
64742-47-8
No
NE*
N/E*
d
*100ppm (525 mg/m3) for 8 hour TWA recommended by manufacturer.
SECTION 2 – PHYSICAL/CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Boiling Point: Greater than 400ºF
Specific Gravity (H2O=1): 0.78
Vapor Pressure: PSIG @ 70°F (Aerosols): N/A
Vapor Pressure (Non-Aerosols)(mm Hg and Temperature): not determined
Vapor Density (Air = 1): not determined
Evaporation Rate ( = 1): N/D
Solubility in Water: Negligible
Water Reactive: No
Appearance and Odor: Water white, clear oily liquid with slight grapefruit odor.
SECTION 3 – FIRE AND EXPLOSION HAZARD DATA
FLAMMABILITY as per USA FLAME PROJECTION TEST (aerosols) N/A
Auto Ignition Temperature
ND
Flammability Limits in Air by % in Volume:
% LEL: ND % UEL: ND
FLASH POINT AND METHOD USED (non-aerosols): greater than 204ºF TCC
EXTINGUISHER MEDIA: Water spray or fog, foam, dry chemical or CO2. Do not use direct water stream.
SPECIAL FIRE FIGHTING PROCEDURES: Do not enter confined fire space without proper protective equipment including NIOSH approved self-contained breathing apparatus. Cool fire exposed containers, surrounding equipment &
structures with water.
Unusual Fire & Explosion Hazards: None expected.
SECTION 4 – REACTIVITY HAZARD DATA
STABILITY [ X ] STABLE [ ] UNSTABLE
HAZARDOUS POLYMERIZATION [ ] WILL [ X ] WILL NOT OCCUR
Incompatibility (Mat. to avoid): Oxidizing materials.
Conditions to Avoid: Heat, sparks, open flame.
Hazardous Decomposition Products: Oxides of carbon & unidentified organic compounds may be formed during combustion.
SECTION 5 – HEALTH HAZARD DATA
PRIMARY ROUTES OF ENTRY: [ ] INHALATION [ X ] INGESTION [ ] SKIN ABSORPTION [ ] EYE [ ] NOT HAZARDOUS
ACUTE EFFECTS: As product is not highly volatile under ambient conditions, inhalation acute effects due to vapor inhalation is unlikely to occur. (See note concerning inhalation of mist under Inhalation below.)
Inhalation: High vapor concentrations may cause CNS depression, headaches, dizziness, irritation of mucous membranes, and kidney effects. Extreme concentrations or inhalation of mist or aspiration into lungs may cause chemical pneumonitus or asphyxiation.
Eye Contact: Slight irritation from short term contact. Prolonged & repeated contact more irritating.
Skin Contact: Prolonged & repeated liquid contact may result in irritation and dermatitis.
Ingestion: May result in nausea and vomiting. Aspiration of vomitus into lungs must be avoided as lung contact can result in chemical pneumonitis, asphyxiation and pulmonary edema.
CHRONIC EFFECTS: None known.
Medical Conditions Generally Aggravated by Exposure: Pre-existing irritation of skin or mucous membranes.
EMERGENCY FIRST AID PROCEDURES
Eye Contact: Flush with water for 15 minutes. If irritation persists, get medical attention.
Skin Contact: Wash with soap and water. If irritation persists, get medical attention.
Inhalation: Remove to fresh air. Provide oxygen if breathing is difficult. Get medical attention.
Ingestion: DO NOT INDUCE VOMITING. Drink 3 to 4 glasses of water. Get immediate medical attention.
SECTION 6 – CONTROL AND PROTECTIVE MEASURES
Respiratory Protection (specify type): As required to prevent overexposure. NIOSH approved air purifying respirator for organic vapors or atmosphere-supplying respirator.
Protective Gloves: As required to minimize skin contact.
Eye Protection: Safety glasses or goggles.
Ventilation Requirements: Local exhaust is generally sufficient. If material is heated, explosion proof ventilation as required to control vapor concentrations.
Other Protective Clothing & Equipment: Clothing as required to minimize skin contact. Eyewash station and safety shower.
Hygienic Work Practices: Do not eat, drink or smoke in work area. Wash hands after handling.
SECTION 7 – PRECAUTIONS FOR SAFE HANDLING AND USE
Steps To Be Taken If Material Is Spilled Or Released: Contain spill. Keep out of surface waters & any sewers or water courses entering or leading to surface waters. Soak up with inert absorbent & place in properly labeled leak-proof containers for disposal.
Waste Disposal Methods: Dispose of in accordance with all local, state and federal regulations.
Precautions To Be Taken In Handling & Storage: Store in original shipping containers away from heat, open flame & oxidizing materials. Keep closed when not in use.
Other Precautions &/or Special Hazards: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. Read & follow label directions.
We believe the statements, technical information and recommendations contained herein are reliable, but they are given without warranty or guarantee of any kind.
** Chemical Listed as Carcinogen or Potential Carcinogen. [a] NTP [b] IARC Monograph [c] OSHA [d] Not Listed [e] Animal Data Only
——————————————————————-

Could you live on $300 million a year?

2011-12-14T08:54:00.000-08:00

Hedge fund manager John Paulson “earned” $5 billion in 2010. (Yes, that’s a five with nine zeros behind it.) Under our current tax laws, if Mr. Paulson paid the full tax owed on that sum of money, rather than the discount rate he actually pays after loopholes, deductions, and money stashed overseas, he would have paid 35% tax on his income, (which is, coincidentally, the same tax rate as mine because of self-employment taxes, though his income was approximately 100,000 times larger than mine last year).
Besides the obvious income disparity, there are other differences between me and Mr. Paulson. For instance, I earn money by writing about environmental topics, wrangling composting worms, and teaching Federal inmates how to vermicompost food waste. I also grow, forage and scrounge a lot of our food. In other words, I am flying by the seat of my pants, which are getting increasingly threadbare. Mr. Paulson, on the other hand, made much of his money last year by “shorting,” which means that he made money by betting against our economy: the worse the economy got, the more money he made. Thus he had no incentive whatsoever to try to help the economy or create jobs. Could anyone possibly get farther from being “a jobs creator” than that?

The Farmworkers Toil for Thee

2011-10-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

When I was about ten years old, my family drove toSanta Cruz for a vacation. One day we drove through the nearby agriculturalarea and saw farmworkers bent double in the fields, wielding machetes in orderto harvest Brussels sprouts. I watched, horrified, through the car window, asthese people toiled. They never straightened up and I could feel their agony; Ican still see them, I can still feel their agony, and I still send money to theUnited Farmworkers every time I have a spare dime. And apparently, someone outthere in the ether is watching me, because a couple of months ago I was sent acomplementary subscription to “Latina” magazine. I am not Latina.

I have been doing hard physical labor most of myadult life: I’ve done roofing, housecleaning, organic landscaping, and bulk vermicompostingof food waste. I know what it isto be completely physically exhausted at the end of a day, not because I’ve runa marathon or participated in a sport, but rather because I’ve been working. I’vesuffered from heat exhaustion (recovery took three months), and once even hadto plant hundreds of bulbs through two and a half feet of snow. On manyoccasions when I was much younger, I’d go to bed as soon as I got home, tooexhausted to even eat dinner. And this was always after working six hours orless, because six hours is, and always has been, my absolute limit. If Iattempt to work more than six hours, I collapse. And after those particularly strenuous days, I require a dayof rest, so my weekly limit for hard manual labor is a mere 24 hours. But I am not made of such tough stuffas farmworkers are:

According to a 2009 reportby the National Center for FarmworkerHealth, Inc., farmworkers worked an average of 42 hours per week. A quarterof farmworkers worked less than 35 hours per week, another quarter worked between 35 and 40 hours per week, anotherquarter worked between 41 and 49 hours per week, and the last quarter worked 50hours or more per week. Theaverage individual farmworker had an annual income that ranged from $10,000 to$12,499. These farmworkers suffer not only from the elements, and from mistreatment by farm ownersand field supervisors, but also from exposure to agricultural chemicals: “300,000 farmworkers are poisoned everysingle year in the U.S.” Dr. Ann Lopez, director of the Center forFarmworker Families.

Thus it is with very divided emotions that I amfollowing the latest agricultural news from Alabama: part of me feels very,very sad that the lives of migrant workers are being turned upside down as theyflee Alabama and the draconian new anti-immigrant law that was passed in June.This law authorizes police to detain people who have been caught “driving whilebrown;” and public schools are now required to determine the legal residencystatus of all students. The other side of me is giggling gleefully and somewhathysterically at the news accounts from down on the good ole farms in Alabama.

Though farmers pleaded with legislators not to pass the law,the politicos who rammed Alabama HB 56 through, insist that over time, more andmore unemployed Americans will fill the jobs that fleeing Hispanics leftbehind. Eyewitness accounts from the fields suggest that the legislators werewrong:

According to an October 20, 2011 Associated Pressarticle by Alicia A. Caldwell and Jay Reeves: “Potato farmerKeith Smith saw most of his Hispanic workers leave after Alabama's toughimmigration law took effect, so he hired Americans. It hasn't worked out: Theyshow up late, work slower than seasoned farm hands and are ready to call it aday after lunch or by midafternoon. Some quit after a single day.”

Jerry Spencer,of Grow Alabama, a jobber for locally grown produce, stated that a crew of fourHispanic workers can pick between 250-300 twenty-five-pound-boxes of tomatoesper day, each worker earning approximately $150. One day recently, a crew of 25American citizens picked 200 boxes of tomatoes, and each member of the crewearned $24. Is it any wonder that unemployed Americans are not lining up towork in Alabama’s fields? (Or in any other fields.)

According to an October 19,2011 article by Gary Pinnell, the bill’s sponsor, Alabama Senator Scott Beason,argued that the bill would free up jobs for Alabamians. Beason may have beenmistaken, or he may be just plain evil. The bill’s consequences, whetherintentional or unintentional may be dire for Alabama’s farmers. Chad Smith, tomato farmer said, “The tomatoes are rotting on the vine, and there is very little we cando.” He estimated his family could lose up to $150,000 this season.

Leroy Smith, Chad’s father, challenged the senator to pick a bucketfull of tomatoes and experience the labor-intensive work himself, if he was soconfident immigrants could be easily replaced.

Beason declined, but promised to see what could be done to helpfarmers.

Leroy Smith threw down the bucket. “I figured it would be like that.”

State Representative BeckyNordgren, a Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said: “This is something that my constituents have been wanting for goodlong time.”( Nordgren’s constituents must really really hate freshproduce.)

A similar bill passed inGeorgia has already proven disastrous. A study commissioned by Georgia’s Fruitand Vegetable Growers Association showed that farmers lost at least $74.9million in crops last spring and summer because of the severe labor shortagecaused by Georgia’s anti-immigrant bill.

Crops arerotting in the fields and farmers are planning strategies to downsize nextyear’s plantings. Stand by for skyrocketing produce prices.

Not the right time to slam the brakes on the economyI

2011-09-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

I wish some of the Regressives who want We the People to assume the fetal position until the economy blows over would read this article in the latest "Entrepreneur" magazine: "Beyond the bubble (tea)" by Rich Karpinski. Here's a wonderful quote from Terry Pham, the subject of the article, about what he did to stay in business In 2009, during the depths of the Recession, "We ramped up our advertising and tried to use social media to really tap in directly to our customers through Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and LivingSocial. It ended up paying off because we were able to get more people in the door that might not have otherwise come to Fat Straws, and we were able to capture a new audience. Many times when business starts to contract, people have a reactive response, which normally equates to cutting labor, watching food costs and other cost-cutting measures. We tried to do the opposite." In fact, he did not lay off any employees, instead he had a meeting with all his employees from both his stores, in order to discuss the future, and rather than cutting back or retrenching, they decided to ramp up quality control and service. A nearby Jamba Juice and a Cold Stone Creamery both closed, but Fat Straws is still going strong.

Moral of the story: when you are going around a curve, don't slam on the brakes, accelerate through the curve. Companies that increase their efforts, invest in the future, and aggressively market during bad economic times end up far ahead of the competition when the market improves--and according to all the studies I have read, those companies stay ahead of the competition pretty much forever after.

Unexpected Vermicomposting Happiness

2011-07-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had an unexpectedly good day at the prison…(The preceding may well be a sentence that has never been written before in the history of the world!)

As I was going to say, before I interrupted myself, yesterday was Thursday, so I spent part of the morning at FPC Duluth, checking on the progress and welfare of the 100 foot long “worm farm” I set up there. (I usually call these things worm bins, or vermicomposting bins, but the official Federal Government term is “worm farm,” and my Federal Contractor title is “worm farm specialist,” so who am I to argue? Especially with the Federal Prison System?)

One of the two inmates who takes care of the bin will be released in November, and he has been working very hard on a business plan, because he wants to set up a vermicomposting business on his reservation when he gets home. Ever since he was assigned to work on the worm farm, this inmate has been overflowing with questions for me every Thursday. So yesterday, almost as soon as I walked into the room, he wanted me to look at a piece of paper he was holding. Just as I reached out my hand to take the paper, someone from the Education Department walked in and asked whether the Environmental Education class could come in and learn about the worm farm. I said of course, come right over, and within a few minutes, two instructors and a couple of dozen inmates crowded into the worm room. The two worm farm inmates wanted to retreat to the back of the room, but I told them to come forward, and all three of us fielded questions and explained how the system runs. Both these inmates did an excellent job, and I couldn’t help feeling very proud of them. After half an hour or so, the class crowded out again, and once again that piece of paper was extended toward me, but this time I managed to take it. I had no idea what it was, but the inmate was very anxious for me to read it. It turned out that it was a “Mission Statement” for the business he has been thinking about and planning every waking minute of every day for the past several months. And OH MY! It was absolutely spectacularly wonderful! I was flabbergasted. That Mission Statement managed to pull everything together, and I do mean everything, in an impressively coherent, eloquent , and understatedly heartfelt way. That statement was the epitome of “think globally and act locally.” This inmate, whose name and home reservation I cannot divulge, will be applying for grants the second he gets home after his release. His wife and daughter have been researching the local logistics of finding food sources for the worms, and finding markets for the worm juice and vermicompost. The next step is the business plan, and if it is even half as good as that Mission Statement, it will be a knockout.

I managed, just barely, not to tear up when I read that Mission Statement. That may have been the first time in my entire adult life that I have not cried when I have been that moved by a work of art… And then, the coup de grace was delivered: the inmate said: “Ten years ago, I was an alcoholic, and I didn’t have anything I wanted to do and I didn’t have any goals. Now I do.” And through a great, Herculean effort, I still managed not to cry--doing so could have been catastrophic. Contractors are not supposed to form any emotional connections to inmates; tears would have looked like an emotional connection, and would have been a disaster to end all disasters…

I do so hope he gets a grant. If anyone at a granting organization happens to read this, and then sometime after November 2011 receives a grant proposal from a recently released ex-con who wants to do a large, very ambitious vermicomposting project on a reservation, PLEASE give this man a grant! He knows what he is doing, he has been eating, breathing and dreaming this dream every waking hour for months, and it would be a very good thing if he could do it. He's already been punished enough for his non-violent offense.*

Thank you.

*(All the prisoners at FPC Duluth are in prison for non-violent offenses.)

P.S. If you happen to work for the prison system, the answer is: NO, I did not take the piece of paper home. I know better. And no, I am not planning to have any communication whatsoever with this inmate after he is released. I know better.

Weed Them and Eat

2011-07-08T15:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a very busy gardening season thus far. I've been spending most of my days out in the garden, working like a serf, happy as a pig in mud and nearly as dirty, especially when, a couple of weeks ago, I spent half a day out in an intense rainstorm, digging drainage ditches and the beginnings of a pond, in a desperate, and futile, attempt to drain my vegetable garden. Apparently our yard is nearly flat, and water refuses to run even slightly uphill. Who would have thought it? Luckily the top three or four inches of my raised beds remained above water level, though six inches of water flooded my garden paths.

As is usual, the early stages of our garden looked refined and demure, and most of the weeds were edible ones that we've been encouraging over the years, mainly red leafed mustard, Lamb's quarters, and stray garlic. So, as I weeded, I cut the roots off the greens and piled them into a colander. Lamb's quarters are delicious steamed and eaten with mayonnaise. Red leafed mustard is lovely sautéed in olive oil with baby garlic. Unfortunately, those early, idyllic days in the garden have faded, and many of summer's weeds are far less friendly.

Now I look back on the photos that Addie took of our early spring garden, and I think, "Ah, how lovely and tender and innocent!" The garden isn't innocent anymore. I spent several hours this morning before the heat clamped down pulling vicious, spiny Bull Thistles and blackberries, and then scything down weeds that could practically look me straight in the eye. Cynical, hardened garden photos will be posted as soon as I locate the blasted cable. In the meantime, here's a look back at the spring garden:

Pride Goeth Before a Fall, A Tale of High Cholesterol

2011-04-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

PRIDE GOETH BEFORE A FALL. FIRST CHOLESTEROL TEST

So I was feeling pretty good about my rationality, in general. Well, as they say, pride goeth before a fall. On March 10, 2011, I went in to the doctor’s office for some routine bloodwork and a mammogram. I had never had my cholesterol checked before, and when the results came back, I was quite surprised to learn that I had high cholesterol! The doctor’s note stated that he wanted to recheck it in three months. I thought about this for several days, because I have done enough research for “Green Barbarians” to know that low cholesterol levels predispose people to get diseases that I really don’t want to get, such as Alzheimer’s and cancer, and that high cholesterol predisposes people to get heart disease. On the whole, assuming that I was eventually going to die of something or other, I decided that I’d like to try for a nice quick heart attack. So I decided that I would just not ever get another blood cholesterol test, just to keep the doctor from bugging me about my cholesterol levels. But then I got curious, and I started thinking about the fact that that high cholesterol levels can also be a sign of metabolic syndrome, which is a precursor to diabetes, which I really don’t want to get either, so I decided to do some research.

GLUTEN ALLERGY, CHANGED DIET—RAISED ON WHOLE FOODS

Now for a little background information: about two years ago I finally figured out that I have a gluten allergy. I won’t bore and disgust you with the gory details, but suffice it to say that the allergy had suddenly worsened, confining me to the bathroom for a very large segment of each day. Figuring out that eschewing wheat, barley and rye would allow me to venture back out into the world made me very, very happy. So I continued happily along, until Mid-March, thinking I was doing a reasonably good job with my diet--which is for the most part composed of fairly unprocessed, fairly plain foods, which are, for the most part, cooked at home. This is a very normal state of food affairs for me, since my mother raised me on mostly home-cooked whole foods: lots of fruits and vegetables, lots of chicken, whole wheat bread, brown rice, not very many processed foods. We didn’t eat Wonderbread or sugary breakfast cereals and the only thing we did with Velveeta Cheese was use it as fish bait. I never drank pop or KoolAid. This diet was very, very unusual for the early 1960s. I didn’t have my first taste of candy until I was about 5 years old, at a friend's birthday party. Before then, I had truly believed that raisins were candy. I distinctly remember finishing off every last piece of candy in the little paper cup at the side of my paper plate at that birthday party, though I no longer have the faintest idea whose party it was.

DIET, CHOLESTEROL, GLYCEMIC INDEX, METABOLIC SYNDROME

So that’s the history behind this story. I had already done quite a bit of research in this area for Green Barbarians, but that was before I learned that my own cholesterol levels were high. I already knew that the cholesterol that goes down your gullet has little or nothing to do with your blood cholesterol levels, and that sugary or starchy foods that make one’s blood sugar levels rise precipitously are connected to the metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors that increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, but I had no idea that I might be at risk myself. Metabolic Syndrome risk factors include: extra fat around the middle of the body; insulin resistance; high blood pressure; and high cholesterol.

What I learned next, surprised me nearly to the point of unconsciousness.

GLYCEMIC INDEX

Researchers have tested the effects of many many different foods on volunteers’ blood sugar levels, and the results are called the glycemic index. The glycemic index of any given food is the number that compares its effects to the effect that pure glucose sugar has on subjects’ blood sugar levels.

Glucose is 100 on this scale. A food with a high glycemic index can make people’s blood sugar levels rise very high and very fast, and the pancreas has to deal with this by rapidly releasing insulin. A diet that contains large amounts of high-glycemic eventually will wear out the pancreas, causing full blown diabetes.

INSULIN FORCES GLUCOSE INTO CELLS, IT IS STORED AS GLYCOGEN IN MUSCLES AND LIVER, ELSEWHERE AS FAT

The insulin lowers the blood sugar levels by forcing glucose into the cells, where it is stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver, and everywhere else as fat. But wait! It gets worse. Once this large amount of insulin has lowered the blood sugar levels to a reasonable level, it continues forcing glucose out of the bloodstream, and soon blood glucose levels drop into the unpleasant territory of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), causing jitteriness, shakiness, headache, weakness, irritability, anxiety, sweating, heart palpitations, and extreme hunger. It’s a vicious cycle.

GLYCEMIC INDEX <55 = LOW; 56-69 = MEDIUM; >70 = HIGH

According to the experts, a glycemic index number below 55 is considered low, and in the “safe” category for diabetics or pre-diabetics; between 56 and 69 is considered a “medium” glycemic index number, and can be eaten safely in moderation; any food with a glycemic index number above 70 is considered high, and may have a disastrous effect on a diabetic’s blood sugar levels. Now one may ask, what’s it for me if I’m not a diabetic? The answer is that eating a large amount of foods with a high glycemic index makes the pancreas work very hard, and doing this too much may make the pancreas wear out prematurely. And frankly, the way things are going in this country, almost all Americans could be considered at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Before I began perusing the glycemic index tables, I was thinking that I was simply going to have to increase my exercise levels (which I probably should do anyway) but that there probably wasn’t much I’d be able to do about my diet, given the fact that I was already eating pretty healthily for the most part, my diet mostly consists of lots of fruits and vegetables, poultry, lots of milk, most of it in the form of homemade kefir, cheese, peanutbutter, (I do eat red meat, though not a lot of it, and I am not averse to slices of lovely crisp bacon. But for the most part, meat has no effect whatsoever on blood sugar levels, so it is not even on the glycemic index.) I don’t eat very many sweets, so I wasn’t expecting any nasty surprises from the glycemic index.

NO GLUTEN, LOTS OF RICE

Since I’d had to give up wheat, I’d switched over to mostly rice-based breads and crackers, but since they were all made of brown rice, I figured they were healthy for me. I was raised a brown rice baby, after all. I don’t eat very many sweets, so I wasn’t expecting any nasty surprises from the glycemic index.

I began looking up my most common foods: yogurt, 27, Oatmeal, 49, apple 40, banana 45, avocado 0, honey 58 (slightly above the low category which ends at 56, remember. So far so good. Orange 49, carrots, cooked 49, plum, 39… So imagine my consternation when I read: brown rice, boiled 87 +- 8, whole wheat bread 74 +-2, baked potato, no fat 85 ( I already knew that baked potatoes without fat were not a good idea) French fries 63 +- 5. But then, it gets worse: potato chips 56 +- 3; soft drink 59 +- 3/ RICE CRACKERS 91; rice flour bread 72 +-9; puffed rice cakes, plain 91 +-7. By contrast: Coco pops 77 +-3; Chocolate ice cream (which I don’t eat, by the way 37 +-3; shortbread 64 +-8; jellybeans 80 +-8 (NOTICE THE JELLYBEANS AT 80 ARE SLIGHTLY LESS GYLCEMIC THAN THE BAKED POTATO AT 85); marshmallows 62 +-6; Snicker’s bar 43 +-4;

Rice milk: 92 +-9.

SNICKER’S BAR VS. BROWN RICE

I began feeling a bit odd when I realized that as far as my blood sugar levels went, I would have been much better off eating Snicker’s bars for dinner rather than boiled brown rice, that I would have better off eating ice cream for lunch rather than rice crackers and cheese, and that my lifelong belief that all whole foods are always going to be better for everyone’s health than eating “junk food” would need to be

re-evaluated food by food. The digestion of table sugar, which is half sucrose and half fructose, produces only half as much glucose as the digestion of the same amount of starch, thus the startling difference between the glycemic indexes of candy bars and rice crackers.

AMYLOSE = SLOW DIGESTION AMYLOPECTIN = FAST DIGESTION

There are two different types of starches: amylose, which is digested at a relatively leisurely rate; and amylopectin, which is digested quickly, thus dumping large amounts of glucose into the blood stream. Amylose starch is somewhat water resistant; this makes it a bit more resistant to digestion than is amylopectin starch. The smaller the pieces of starch, the more easily they are digested, and the more water the starch contains (gelatinization) the more easily and quickly it can be digested. Protein, fat, and high acidity all slow digestion and moderate blood sugar levels. Some sugary foods such as cookies and breakfast cereals have relatively low GI values, because the sugar prevent water from infiltrating the starch molecules. Doctors used to just tell diabetics to avoid eating sugar, but it turns out that things are not that simple.

FAMILY HISTORY

One of my grandmothers developed diabetes in later life (the other didn’t live long enough to have a later life), so I needed to make some changes. Immediately. I felt an utter fool. After all the thousands of hours I’ve put into researching the health effects of myriad things, how could I have so blithely changed my entire diet without bothering to check out the foods I was switching to? It turns out that some types of starch have much more drastic effects on blood sugar levels than does pure tablesugar. I had made an assumption that after a lifetime of “healthy eating,” I knew what I was doing. I was wrong, and I should have known better. I have known for a very, very long time that it is absolutely impossible to predict biology-- one has to either do, or read, the research. Biology is not rational, it is biology. It is what it is, and interestingly, almost everything that most of us “just know” is eventually proven wrong.

PIZZA

The single strangest thing that I have learned about this subject is that of all the foods that have been tested, PIZZA caused the most trouble! In a paper entitled “Exaggerated hyperglycemica after a pizza meal in well-controlled diabetes," researchers matched pizza against another meal which consisted of foods with strong glycemic effects. After the meal, the subjects who ate the control meal were able to maintain their blood sugar levels at a safe level, but the pizza-eaters' blood sugar levels kept rising and rising, and stayed elevated for 4 to 9 hours after the meal. This was shocking news to me, but apparently this is not news to a lot of diabetics. Here are a couple of pizza quotes from diabetics:
"Pizza, never touch the stuff, it causes my blood sugars to go crazy."
"I wish I could eat pizza, it's one of those things I haven't figured out how to cover with my meal insulin."
High blood sugar levels cause a rise in insulin; and the insulin pushes glucose into the cells, where a LOT OF IT IS STORED AS FAT. Is it possible that pizza is actually one of the biggest culprits in the fattening of America? Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day; pizza accounts for more than 10 percent of all food sales; each man, woman and child in America eats an average of 23 pounds of pizza a year (46 slices).

Selling Fear--The Dangerous Greediness of Dr. Andrew Wakefield

2011-04-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

MMR VACCINE, DR. ANDREW WAKEFIELD, T.C. OUTBREAK MEASLES

Sometimes the product that the purposefully induced fear is meant to promote is extremely difficult to trace. For instance: In 1998, the Lancet, the Journal of the British Medical Journal, published a paper by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, in which he reported a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and the development of autism. This information terrified millions of parents, many of whom had encountered children with autism, very few of whom had actually experienced the effects of the diseases that the vaccine effectively prevented. Soon the possible hazards of the vaccine began to seem far more dangerous than the diseases themselves.

So many parents are refusing vaccines these days, that herd immunity, which helps protect the most vulnerable youngsters from these diseases, is breaking down, and outbreaks of easily preventable diseases are occurring all over the world. In fact, the Somali community in the Twin Cities is experiencing an outbreak of measles, because Somali parents are afraid that vaccines make their children autistic.

The truth is that there is no connection between childhood vaccines and autism, and there never has been. In 2010, after a lengthy and exhaustive investigation, British authorities stripped Dr. Wakefield of his medical license, and the Lancet published a retraction of his paper. Wakefield had fabricated an elaborate hoax in which he changed the dates of the onset of symptoms in the twelve, count them TWELVE! children whom he claimed had become autistic after they were given the MMR vaccine. Some of them had indeed begun to display symptoms of autism after they were vaccinated, but the truth was that it wasn’t very shortly thereafter, as Wakefield had claimed, but several months later, and several of the children had, in reality, begun displaying symptoms of autism before they were vaccinated, and Wakefield changed those data as well, claiming that these children had become autistic after they were vaccinated. But what, one may ask, could have been the motivation behind this? Aren’t the drug companies the only entities that stand to make money through vaccines? When a cold hard light of investigative journalism was turned upon Dr. Wakefield, it shone on a patent application for a test for something he dubbed “autistic enterocolitis,” which according to a prospectus for potential investors, could conceivably produce as much as $43 million in revenue, driven by “litigation driven testing” of patients. The father of one of the children in the 1998 study was one of his partners in this mercenary enterprise.

Fear is a very very dangerous emotion. Not only does it make people do things which are very obviously against their own best interests, fear-induced stress also causes biological changes. Stress increases blood pressure, raises the risk of cardiovascular disease, suppresses the immune system, increases the likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes, suppresses growth, damages memory, decreases fertility. Perhaps we should all initiate a class-action suit against companies that use scare tactics as a marketing tool…

Donate blood to a stranger, yet the life you save could be your own

2010-12-17T13:54:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I suddenly realized that Walt hadn’t donated blood in a while, so when he got home, I talked him into it. Later that very evening, by sheer coincidence (really, I had nothing to do with it!) the Blood Bank called and wanted him to donate, so he made an appointment. Great minds think alike, I guess.

Long ago, before we had kids, Walt and I used to donate blood together, but the last time I went in to donate, I tested borderline anemic, and after that, childbirth, motherhood, and various things no one really wants to know about, have kept me perpetually low on blood. So no more donating for me. This is not unusual: premenopausal women are quite commonly a bit low on blood.

The situation is quite different for healthy adult males and postmenopausal women, however. Many healthy adults who are not losing blood regularly, in one way or another, end up with blood that is actually too iron-rich, and this can cause quite serious health problems. (This overabundance of richness in the blood is probably not a normal state for any humans: in hunting societies, men were very likely to be injured fairly regularly, thus lowering their blood iron levels. This is how our species evolved, and the way our bodies are meant to work.) This is why I try to remind Walt to donate blood on a regular basis—I’d much rather he lost blood in a planned and controlled fashion at the blood bank rather than by going out and having periodically-spaced accidents.

So, if you are a healthy adult male, or a healthy post-menopausal woman, and you do not regularly participate in a blood-letting sport such as boxing or bicycling in city traffic, here are some of the reasons that it might be a good idea for you to donate blood:

Women lose blood and lower their blood iron levels every time they menstruate, while men in their twenties begin storing iron in their body tissues. According to Victor Herbert, M.D., a hematologist at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, the average adult male stores about 1,000 milligrams of iron in his body, while the average premenopausal woman’s body stores only 300 milligrams of iron. Men’s risk of heart attack begins rising while they are in their twenties, while the average woman’s risk of heart attack only rises after she goes through menopause.

A 1998 Finnish study found that men who donated blood at least once a year had an 88% lower risk of heart attacks than nondonors.

A 1999 study in Montreal showed that rats who were fed an iron-rich diet for 12 weeks showed a significant increase in blood cholesterol levels when compared with control rats who were fed a normal diet.

“Metabolic syndrome” now affects 25 percent of adults in Western countries. This syndrome is defined as the presence of at least three of the following: elevated blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, elevated serum triglycerides, elevated plasma glucose, and abdominal obesity. This syndrome is closely linked to insulin resistance and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and it also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. A study conducted at Johns Hopkins, showed that people who had the highest blood iron levels were the most likely to have metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, and the risk levels increased as the blood iron levels increased.

A 2005 study conducted at the University Hospital of Girona, Spain, investigated the relationship between iron stored in the body and insulin sensitivity. The researchers compared insulin sensitivity between men who had donated blood between 6 months and 5 years before the study, with control subjects who matched in every other physical way (age, body size, body mass index, cardiovascular risk profile, blood pressure, blood lipids, smoking status) but who had never donated blood. They found that frequent blood donors had better insulin sensitivity, decreased insulin secretion, and significantly lower amounts of iron stored in their bodies than did the nondonors.

And, this cheery note from the friendly folks at the Iron Disorders Institute http://www.irondisorders.org/iron-overload: “Excess iron in vital organs, even in mild cases of iron overload, increases the risk for liver disease (cirrhosis, cancer), heart attack or heart failure, diabetes mellitus, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome, hypothyroidism, hypogonadism, numerous symptoms and in some cases premature death. Iron mismanagement resulting in overload can accelerate such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer’s, early-onset Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.” And a few of the symptoms that can be caused by iron overload: “…chronic fatigue, joint pain, abdominal pain, irregular heart rhythm, loss of interest in sex, hair loss, depression…” According to the iron Disorders Institute, the treatment for iron overload is iron reduction therapy, iron chelation, or donating blood on a regular basis.

When you donate blood, the life you save could be your own.

The Great Vinegar Debate

2010-12-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

For some reason I have never been able to fathom, vinegar seems to be an extremely controversial substance these days. Since I published "Green Housekeeping," ("Organic Housekeeping" in hardbound) I have gotten quite a few queries from concerned readers who were worried about the environmental and human health impacts of good ol' kitchen-variety vinegar.
Most of these correspondents were polite but concerned, though the very first one vehemently accused me of encouraging people to use a dangerous, environment-wrecking substance (vinegar) which would permanently damage surface-water ecosystems. No matter how much scientific evidence I sent her way, nothing got through to her ironclad mind, and she kept bombarding me with increasingly nasty emails until I finally told her to quit contacting me and blocked her email address.

Here is an email exchange I had recently with a friendly, open-minded reader. I am grateful that she wrote to me and gave me the opportunity to share some of the cool things I have learned about vinegar in the past few years:

Hi Ellen,
I purchased your book Green Housekeeping and am using and loving the cleaning advice. I have a question about vinegar…I had a couple bottles of “green cleaners” one was “holy cow.” In the description of their window cleaner they state that it contains no vinegar or any other harmful chemicals…??? I just wanted to get your take on that.
When using sals suds, mixed with water for cleaning, do I need to rinse?
Last one, Sal suds has SLS as the second ingredient next to water in their suds. I’ve spent years looking at shampoo labels, trying to find one without SLS…??
Please advise. Your website looks great ! Thanks, Vicki
Hi Vicki,
I’m very glad to hear that you are enjoying Green Housekeeping! Thank you for writing to me!
I don’t know what planet the “holy cow” people live on, but on my home planet, vinegar is what happens when vegetative matter ferments… It’s not harmful here. In fact, the Department of Defense uses vinegar in bioremediation projects to remove contaminants such as nitrates, carbon tetrachloride (a solvent used in plutonium processing), petroleum, explosive compounds, and even uranium from ground water, and they do this by pouring vinegar down wells!
The common kind of vinegar that one buys at the grocery store is diluted and is “food grade,” meaning that it is safe to ingest full strength–which I frequently do when I eat oil and vinegar salad dressing. I’ve also drunk apple cider vinegar in water as a health drink, and I’m still here. People have been making and ingesting vinegar for millennia… There is such a thing as laboratory grade acetic acid out there, which is quite strong, and is NOT available in regular stores. However, no consumer product would contain that high a percentage of acetic acid. Sal suds are basically liquid soap, so yes, you should rinse.
The only cleaners I know of that don’t need to be rinsed are vinegar and hydrogen peroxide, everything else leaves some kind of residue. SLS is one of those substances that is a bit harsh when used full strength, but pretty harmless when diluted. There are a lot of substances like that out there, and just because something should be diluted before use, does not mean that one should not use it in dilute form. As the label on the Dr. Bronner says: “Dilute! Dilute! Dilute!” I once read a forum in which people were chatting about Dr. Bronner’s Soap: one person was extremely worried because soap is made with lye, which is very very caustic–she concluded that Dr. Bronner’s was too dangerous to use because soap is made with lye. Well, there is no other way to make soap other than to “saponify” fat with a strong alkali (i.e. lye) and once the fat is saponified, there is a chemical reaction, and the lye is no longer lye.
Another woman complained that her private parts stung after she washed them with full strength Dr. Bronner’s, and stated that she was never going to use Dr. Bronner’s Soap again. Good grief! Of course it hurt! Getting full strength soap on a mucous membrane is going to hurt! Getting soap in your eyes hurts too, it doesn’t mean that soap is bad, it just means that you should keep it out of your eyes, and, until you dilute it, out of your tender parts.
I always dilute my Dr. Bronner’s Soap down to half strength as soon as I get it home, by pouring half of it into an empty Dr. Bronner’s bottle, and then filling both bottles up the rest of the way with water. We waste far less soap when it is diluted, and we don’t end up with stinging nether regions…
I hope this helps!
Ellen

Wynken, Blynken, Nod, Melatonin and Buteyko

2010-11-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

Now that I have nearly recovered from my ten-day-long vacation, I am ready to get back to work. The last blog post I wrote before going to the Jersey Shore for a Sandbeck Family get-together was about my earthshattering discovery of a red night light. In that post, I promised to write more about a couple of techniques that may help insomniacs. So, here goes.

I am one of those unfortunate people who needs enormous quantities of sleep in order to function at all—ten hours a night is what my body really needs, and if I don’t get it, I become even more absent-minded than usual. Luckily for me, I generally sleep like a rock whose sleep is only occasionally fractured, usually when I’ve made some foolish late-night food or beverage choices.

So what, one may well ask, could someone such as I, blessed with the gift of rocklike sleep, possibly have to say about insomnia? My answer is that I have been spending my nights for the past thirty years with Walt, who is not blessed with a rock-like ability to sleep. Walt wakes up every time a grasshopper turns over in its grasshoppery bed. (Our children probably survived their infancies solely because of Walt’s vigilance -- I was all too capable of sleeping soundly right through the earsplitting screams of an enraged, hungry infant in a bassinette right next to me.)

Several years ago Walt went through such a devastating spell of insomnia that he got a prescription for sleeping pills. The first time he took one of the pills, I was awake all night, terrified, desperately trying to keep him breathing as he emitted great rattling, terrifying apneal snores, punctuated by bouts of non-breathing. In the morning I informed him that I would certainly not survive another such night, and the pills were sent to the landfill.

About a year ago, while ambling through the internet, I stumbled upon something really interesting: a BBC documentary called “The Breathless Way to Cure Asthma,” about “Buteyko Therapy,” a system of breathing exercises developed by Dr. Konstantin Buteyko in the 1950’s. The Buteyko Method has been used for more than fifty years, and seems to help alleviate the symptoms of asthma, sleep apnea, and anxiety, among other ailments which are caused or aggravated by hyperventilation. While watching the BBC video, I realized that I have been a mouth-breather my entire life, possibly because I learned to swim before I learned to sit up.

(An old remedy for an asthma attack was to make the sufferer breathe with a paperbag over his mouth, which increases the blood levels of carbon dioxide, thus bringing the whole system back into balance and helping reduce the inflammation in the bronchial tubes. NOTE: This is only effective if the asthma attack has not already progressed too far. DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME IN THE EVENT OF A SEVERE ASTHMA ATTACK.)

(An old cure for a panic attack is to make the sufferer breathe through a paperbag, see above.)

I went on to watch other videos which documented actual Buteyko training sessions in which dozens of asthmatics were taught Buteyko techniques. Because I had determined that I was an habitual mouth-breather, I decided to do the exercises along with the people in the video. This was much more difficult than it sounds, because the Buteyko exercises are designed to make people push their limits, physical and mental (mostly mental) and make people smack right up against the panic induced by what seems to be an inadequate oxygen intake. I fought down my panic right along with the students in the videos, and there was a big payoff: I am no longer a night-drooler who awakes to a soggy pillow each morning; I no longer wake up with a mouth so dry that it feels as if it has been cast in concrete; I no longer have attacks of restless leg syndrome; and best of all, I am no longer beset by the occasional odd panic attack in which my breathing suddenly becosme unautomatic, and I feel as if I have forgotten how to breathe, despite breathing at the time.

I felt compelled to share the wealth, and soon Walt was breathing only through his nose at night. This mostly put a stop to the hideous, nerve-wracking snoring he occasionally indulged in, and now when he starts to snore, I simply whisper at him that he needs to breathe through his nose, and the snoring stops. Soon Walt started waking up more refreshed in the morning.

After this triumph, I believed that I was on a roll, and could probably venture farther into the Land of Nod. So I read up on melatonin again, and decided that what Walt and I needed was to start taking melatonin pills at night. (Natural melatonin production wanes as people get older. Walt and I aren’t getting any younger.) I went to the drugstore and bought a bottle of 3 mg melatonin pills, and we each took one pill before bed. The next morning Walt woke up very happy after having slept soundly, much more soundly than he remembered sleeping before. We’ve been taking melatonin pills every night before bed ever since, with occasional lapses which we’ve sincerely regretted the morning after.

The next step was to finally convince Walt that he should use a sleep mask. He is incapable of sleeping through light exposure—a full moon will completely throw him off his sleep game. For years I’d begged him to use a sleep mask, but he’d refused, preferring instead to rig up ever more cumbersome and inconvenient screens and blinds in order to block the ambient light from our very slanted roof windows. But after the success of the nose-breathing and the melatonin, I was able to push my advantage. The blinds weren’t blocking enough light to make a difference anyway, and I was tired of banging my head on them. So I informed him that it wasn't fair to subject me to such inconvenience, and Walt took the blinds down and bought a sleep mask. This seems to have been the final piece of Walt’s sleep puzzle. Now that he has increased his melatonin, breathes only through his nose, and is experiencing total nocturnal darkness, he sleeps quite well almost every night!

Now I am trying to convince my brother-in-law, who has sleep apnea, that he should look into getting some Buteyko training.

Here is the address for the video of the BBC program about Buteyko: http://knol.google.com/k/buteyko-qed-bbc-tv-program#

If this doesn’t work, trying typing in “BBC Buteyko video.”

Red Light, Be Light, Delight

2010-10-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I made a purchase that I have been aching to make for years, but had been unable to, because the product I coveted was not yet on the market. Now it is, and I am the proud owner of two, yes count them, two, RED L.E.D. nightlights!!!! They cost me $6.98 apiece, and I expect wonderful things from them.

Less excitable souls may well wonder at this, and perhaps question my sanity. I have my reasons, which I will be more than happy to elucidate, since I have already had to explain myself, in ninety-two part harmony, to the man in charge of Menard’s lighting section. One would think he’d never seen anyone dancing a jig in his aisle before.

It turned out that the Menard’s man has trouble sleeping, and was quite interested when I told him about the connection between nighttime exposure to any color of light other than red, and the severe disruption of melatonin production.

Some background information about melatonin may be in order here, (or perhaps out of order here, since my mind works in a decidedly non-linear fashion):

Melatonin is a hormone that is produced and secreted at night, and only at night, by the pineal gland. Exposure to light at night completely suppresses the production of melatonin. It doesn’t require very bright lights to stop the production of melatonin—bright indoor white light at 300 lux) as well as very dim light at 0.25 lux, (moonlight is about one lux)) were both sufficient to prevent all melatonin production in laboratory animals. And research conducted by the National Institutes of Health showed that even a very brief light exposure suppresses melatonin production in lab animals: a one minute exposure to white light every two hours during the night suppressed melatonin production by 65 percent. The only type of light that does not affect melatonin production is red light.

Melatonin is essential to the regulation of reproduction, body weight, and energy balance, and is necessary for the synchronization of sleep and circadian rhythms. In other words, if you don’t get enough darkness, you have a very good chance of ending up tired, cranky, listless, out of whack, and possibly obese. (Perhaps it’s not just the potato chips we eat while watching TV that are making us fat, maybe the the blue light emanating from the TV is also at fault.)

Recent research has also shown that one of melatonin’s functions is to thwart the growth of cancerous tumors. Researchers began studying the relationship between melatonin and cancer when it became obvious that women who work the night shift have an increased risk of developing breast cancer, and because it was known that nocturnal exposure to light--any color light other than red light—suppresses the normal nightly production of melatonin.

It turns out that human breast cancer cells being grown in live rats, as well as breast cancer cells being grown in petri dishes, proliferate wildly when exposed to artificial lights at night.

It has been more than ten years since I first read about the insidious effects of night time light exposure, and ever since then I have been searching for energy-efficient red night lights. Is it any wonder that my recent discovery had me dancing in the aisles?

After I finished jigging and explaining the benefits of red night lights, the lighting man asked me if I had any more information about sleep health that I would be willing to share with him. He said he has mild sleep apnea (snoring, mostly), so I told him about the Buteyko Method. I will write about the Buteyko Method in a future post—today I am running out of time.

Applied primatology, Part Two: The Power of Freebies

2010-09-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have gotten quite a bit of feedback about my post, “Applied Primatology,” which was based on work done by the behavioral economist, Dan Ariely. Positive reinforcement works upon me in exactly the way it works upon all animals; therefore I have decided to write again about Professor Ariely’s work. I am rereading “Predictably Irrational,” and this time I will be writing about Ariely’s research into the allure of “free” stuff.

In 2006, Professor Ariely, Professor Nina Mazar, and graduate student Kristina Shampanier “went into the chocolate business.” Sort of. They weren’t going after a profit, they were hot in the pursuit of data. The researchers set their lures (excuse me, wares) on a table in MIT’s student center. A large sign above the table read: “One chocolate per customer.” Once the potential customers stepped forward, they could see the two types of chocolates and their prices.

There were two different types of lures (excuse me, chocolates) on the table: Hershey’s Kisses, which cost about 5 cents apiece wholesale, and Lindt Truffles, which wholesale for a bit more than 30 cents apiece. As Professor Ariely explained in his book: “…Lindt is produced by a Swiss firm that has been blending fine cocoas for 160 years. Lindt’s chocolate truffles are particularly prized—exquisitely creamy and just about irresistible…Hershey’s Kisses, on the other hand are good little chocolates, but let’s face it, they are rather ordinary: Hershey cranks out 80 million Kisses a day.”

A total of 398 people participated in this experiment:

The experimenters left the price signs up for half an hour at a time, took them down for at least 15 minutes, in order to make sure that no prospective participants ever saw more than one set of prices offered, and then replaced the signs with new prices for another go-round. These are the prices the researchers offered:

LINDT TRUFFLE, 15 CENTS---HERSHEY’S KISS, 1 CENT

At this price, 73 percent of participants chose the Lindt truffle, and 27 percent chose a Hershey’s Kiss.

LINDT TRUFFLE, 14 CENTS—HERSHEY’S KISS, FREE

At this price, 31 percent of participants chose a Lindt truffle, while 69 percent chose a Kiss.

The researchers then decided to remove the possible obstacle of a lack of pocket change by making their chocolatey offers in one of MIT’s cafeterias, where the boxes of chocolates and their price signs were set up right next to the cashier so that students could add the cost of a single chocolate to their lunch tabs. The prices were as follows: either Lindt truffle 14 cents and Kiss 1 cent, or Lindt truffle 13 cents, Kiss free. The results were the same as they were in the student center—while more students chose the Lindt truffle when the Kiss cost a penny, the vast majority of participants chose the free Kiss rather than the great deal on the Lindt truffle.

According to standard economic theory, a majority of consumers should have still chosen to buy the Lindt truffle rather than take the Kiss, even when the Kiss was free, because spending 14 cents to buy an excellent truffle is still a better deal than getting an ordinary Kiss for free, but it appears that standard economic theory has not taken the allure of “FREE!” into account.

Dr. Ariely also wrote about Amazon.com’s free shipping phenomenon. I have fallen for this one myself: while ordering a fairly inexpensive book on Amazon, at a certain point in the process, I was informed that I only needed to order another $_____ worth of books, and shipping for the entire order would be free. I thought “Great!” and went hunting for another book to add to my order. Later in the day, when my enthusiasm had cooled a bit, I wondered what had possessed me. On later online shopping excursions I reminded myself that though shipping added about $4 to my bill, an extra book usually added at least $12, and if I was working with limited funds, I needed to order only the book I had originally set out to order.

Apparently, this free shipping order has been a wild success for Amazon.com—there was a huge sales surge all over the world as customers increased their purchases in order to get the “free shipping.” This worldwide increase occurred all over the world, except in France, where through some picturesque Gallic oversight, the offer was modified so that shipping for orders over a certain amount cost only one franc (about 20 American cents). When Amazon.com finally ferreted out the reason for the French division’s failure to increase sales, the free shipping offer was extended to French customers and sales in France jumped dramatically.

If you want to make a really odd impression on someone, pass by a table or booth where someone is offering a “free” something or other, make eye contact and politely say “No thank you!” Walt and I indulge in this un-American behavior fairly regularly because he reckons, and I figure, that if the item is something we didn’t want or need beforehand, we probably still don’t want or need it. On the other hand, if I were offered either a free Hershey’s Kiss or a 14 cent Lindt truffle, I would buy the truffle and bring it home to Walt, because he doesn’t get to eat excellent chocolate all that often, and who could possibly resist buying a really good chocolate for her Sweetie for only 14 cents?

In the meantime, Beware marketers bearing free gifts!

Line Drying Clothes--Across the Great Divide

2010-09-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

While I was writing "Green Barbarians," I researched the legal hotwater that some people have gotten themselves into simply by line-drying their clothes. Many homeowners' associations (HOA's, ain't that appropriate?) ban, among other things: suffering a dandelion to live; flying the American flag; installing curtains, siding, fences and doormats of unapproved color and style; and hanging out laundry of any color at all.

One fine day I typed "line-drying clothes" into a search engine, and was sent to what turned out to be an white supremacist hate-site called "Stormfront." According to Wikipedia, Stormfront is "a white nationalist and supremacist neo-Nazi Internet forum that has been described as the Internet's first major hate site." Much to my astonishment, there was a very lively online conversation going on about line-drying clothes, on which these hate-addled racists were rhapsodizing about drying their clothes out in the sun: "I love the way my sheets smell after they've dried in the sun," "Saves energy," "Reminds me of my grandmother." I was amused to discover that I actually do have something in common with at least a few white supremacists! (Even though some of them might be quite happy to run me over if given the opportunity.)

We need EVERYONE'S help if we are going to be able to conquer the huge environmental problems that face us. EVERYONE! EVERYONE! Even the worst right-wingers, even the most hate-addled preachers... As Red Green says: "We are all in this together."

If you want to join the line-drying club, you might find this website useful, it contains a lot of links to companies that sell various types of clotheslines and accessories:
http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing

Coal Ash Purgatory

2010-09-10T08:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a heartbreaking exchange with a young woman who asked for my help in researching the health effects of coal ash. This morning I asked her permission to post our correspondence on the blog. She very graciously assented.

Here is our correspondence, with her name removed because we are dealing with such tragedy. Empty parentheses ( ) indicate deletions made in order to remove identifying details :

from C. September 8 at 8:36pm

Hi Ellen,

( ) I have a question for you.

I was wondering if you know of any correlation between coal ash and cancer? My hometown includes Belews Lake. I feel like there is an extraordinary number of cases in the area. I know three people who died this summer of cancer. My high school classmate, who is 36, has a stage four brain tumor. She lives across the street from the site.

There is a professor at ( ) a local University, who has been researching the fish for years. I plan to contact him, as well. I feel like someone needs to stand up and say there is too many cases of cancer here.

We also have twice the national average of suicides in the county, as well. So I wonder if the pollution also causes depression.

Thanks for your help!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from C. September 8, 2010 at 11:45pm

Re: coal ash and cancer

And another thing that is weird... people who are unrelated but live close to one another have the same cancer. My aunt died of lymphoma. Her neighbor across the street died three years later of the same kind.

My neighbor died of a brain tumor three weeks ago. His best friend had a tumor in his spinal column and died a few years ago.

Another much older neighbor had bladder cancer and his sister-in-law also died of bladder cancer. These people aren't directly related by blood.

I just think that is really odd.

from Ellen Sandbeck, September 9 at 11:51am

Hi C,

I remember you ( )!

Your message made my heart sink. My much beloved uncle died many years ago of bladder cancer (probably caused by his enormous saccharine-intake) and it was a torment.

I am researching the coal ash link to cancer now. I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Ellen

from Ellen Sandbeck, September 9 at 4:20pm

Dear C,

I have just spent about half the day working on your questions, and what I have learned is quite disturbing. Because the Federal Government has thus far declined to classify coal ash as a hazardous material, the states are free to deal with it as they wish; consequently, some states have very lax standards, while others are much more stringent. Coal ash has been permitted as a building or fill material in some states, and in one case, an entire golf course was built upon a foundation of coal ash with a very thin skin of sod laid over it. 60 Minutes did a program about coal ash, in which Leslie Stahl toured that golf course, and was stunned when she was shown a handful of coal ash that had been brought to the surface of the green by insects. This ash was scooped up in a randomly chosen spot on the course. The program also featured some very impressive doublespeak by industry spokespeople, who claimed, on camera, that coal ash was the “same as normal dirt.” (Yes, the components are similar, yet that statement is very much like claiming that the hydrogen in the Hindenburg was the same as the hydrogen in water, and was therefore harmless.) The heavy metals and other toxins in coal are already in higher concentrations than they are usually found in “regular soil,” and once the coal has been burned, those toxins are concentrated even more in the fly ash (coal ash).

The Obama Administration has yet to do anything to change coal ash’s status from the official “nonhazardous” to a well-deserved “hazardous,” Despite the impending two year anniversary this December of the bursting of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s humungous coal ash storage pond, which sent a billion gallons of coal dust sludge hurtling over and into nearby land and waterways. What exactly is this Administration waiting for? A written exhortation from God? : “Dear Mr. Obama, Please stop smothering my Creation with toxic sludge. Sincerely, God.” Would God have to promise that He would soften the hearts of the industrialists before our Intrepid Leader might be willing to do something that would irritate them?

But I digress. Your question was, “Does coal ash cause cancer?” The answer is an emphatic Yes. Coal ash contains very high concentrations of arsenic and lead, and may contain varying concentrations of barium, chromium, manganese, selenium, mercury, cadmium, nickel, thallium, dioxins, PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons), and assorted radioactive materials. Most, if not all of these substances are known carcinogens.

The specific cancers you were concerned about were bladder cancer, brain tumors, cancers of the spinal column, and lymphomas. You were also concerned about depression and suicide.

ARSENIC:

The Arsenic Health Effects Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley, “Provided substantive evidence, from ecological studies conducted in Argentina and Chile, that arsenic is a potent cause of human bladder cancer and lung cancer.” And, “Showed that with exposure to water containing around 6oo micrograms of arsenic per liter of water (a microgram is a millionth of a gram), 1 in 10 adult deaths may be due to arsenic-caused cancers, one of the highest environmental cancer risks ever reported in a large population.”

LEAD:

Lead exposure can damage the nervous system and can cause, among other unpleasant things: anemia, malaise, and lethargy. Sounds like depression to me.

MERCURY:

Mercury exposure can damage the gastrointestinal tract, the nervous system, and the kidneys. Symptoms of mercury exposure can include: skin rashes, mood swings, memory loss, mental disturbances, and muscle weakness. (Depression? You betcha!)

DIOXINS:

A ten-year followup study conducted after an industrial accident in Seveso, Italy in 1976, showed that people who were exposed to high levels of dioxins after the accident had an increased risk of dying of liver cancer, brain cancer, and lymphatic cancers (which include leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease, and lymphomas).

PAHS:

High exposure to PAHs has been shown to greatly increase the risk of skin cancer, bladder cancer, and lung cancer.

Many of the heavy metals commonly found in coal ash increase the risk of lung cancer. One of the most common causes of brain tumors is cancer cells that have migrated from the lungs and metastasized in the brain. So it is possible that almost all the toxins found in coal ash can increase the risk of brain cancer.

C, I know that this information is very grim, but I hope it helps you in some way. Please stay in touch.

Ellen

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

from C. September 9 at 4:44pm

Thank you! This is very brief response. I knew it, but I just feel sad and overwhelmed. I'm not sure how to proceed. But I have forwarded this to my family and a friend, who has been supporting my friend with the brain tumor.

I knew it was the water. Ughh...

I'll keep you posted. I appreciate this so much. I don't know if I can make a difference but it is worth a try.

Maybe I should start collecting names of people with cancer. Or who have died from it. My relative died two weeks ago of a rare leukemia ten days after she learned about it. That was two days after the neighbor with the brain tumor. My mom says everyone on their road five miles long has died of cancer.

Just a nightmare. I bet a lot of people though it was just the cigarette smoke. This is the home of ( ).

Many thanks. Sorry for my rambling.

------------------------------------------

from Ellen Sandbeck September 9 at 9:45pm

C, this is just so heartbreaking, and infuriating! Let me know if you need me to do anything else.

Ellen

-----------------------------------------

from Ellen Sandbeck September 10 at 9:29am

C, would you mind if I put this on my blog? I would remove all of your identifying features, because this is such a sad subject, but I really want people to know more about what is going on with coal ash. I definitely won't do it if it would be too painful to you.

Ellen

--------------------------------------

from C September 10 at 9:47am

Yes, please. I agree that something has to happen. I am trying to put together a list and action-plan. ( ) I need to figure out how to best say this is why we need to reduce our reliance on coal. It is killing our family members and friends.

My friend is in the midst of surgery now. They have taken a piece of the tumor to pathology and keeping her under until they receive the report. Surgery began at 7 am EST.

With this and the idiot pastor, I didn't sleep well last night. Ughh...

Best, C.

Sent via Facebook Mobile

-----------------------------------------

from Ellen Sandbeck, Sept 10, 10:04 am

Dear C,
I wish you the best of luck with figuring out how best to communicate with community members. Sometimes people really don't understand tragedy until it affects them personally. Since this seems to be a really pervasive communal tragedy, perhaps the community has already softened up more than you realize...

Ellen

How To Stretch a Chicken

2010-09-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

The economy is bad and seems to be getting worse. Though experts tell us that the economy is

improving, most of those improvements do not seem to be trickling down to the vast majority of us.

What is trickling down from the top might make good fertilizer, after a bit of processing, but it is not

quite what most of us had in mind...

Demagogues are taking advantage of this, and trying to convince us that cutting taxes for those at

the top would make better stuff trickle down on us. I sincerely doubt this. This "recession" is rather

interesting because it is not quite reality-based: we have not had massive crop failures, drought, floods,

wildfires, there is really no natural, external explanation for it. Our economy has simply been felled by a

perfect storm of greed, fear, tax cuts for the wealthy, and deregulation. Despite what the Regressives say,

it seems unlikely that another round of greed, fear, tax cuts, and deregulation will help us climb out of

this hole we have dug.

What we at the bottom really need to do is to learn how to rely on each other as much as possible,

and on the big corporations as little as possible. Every time you choose to buy the cheapest possible

product, you are running the risk of ending up with a contaminated product (i.e. Chinese wallboard that

is so heavily contaminated with strontium sulfide that it corrodes pipes and causes nose bleeds and

respiratory ailments; children's jewelry that contains so much lead that it could probably be melted down

and molded into bullets; Chinese honey that is contaminated with a banned antibiotic that can cause

aplastic anemia, a serious, and frequently fatal, illness). You are also running the risk of driving

American businesses out of business, and look how well that is working out for all of us!

In the meantime, we all just need to survive and get through this. Luckily, (or unluckily) for me, I

have been self-employed pretty much my entire adult life. Since I am not terribly good at making money,

I have had to learn how to get by on not very much money. Over the years I have acquired some skills

that work pretty well, and I shared some of this very hard-won knowledge in Green Barbarians. Here

are some excerpts that may come in handy in these tough times:

Green Barbarians, page 116

"According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than a quarter of

America's food goes to waste, and it costs $1 billion anually to dispose of this wasted food. The least we

can do is to avoid wasting the food that we have bought with our hard-earned dollars."

Green Barbarians, pages 117-118

"The freezer is a soup-maker’s best friend. Almost any food that is not sweetened can be used in a soup. For instance, when you are preparing fresh vegetables, save the trimmings and put them in a large container in the freezer. Carrot peelings, potato skins, cabbage cores, wilted lettuce and other salad greens, trimmings from celery, broccoli and cauliflower stems and leaves are all valuable additions to soup stock. (Note: Do NOT save green potato peelings or potato eyes! The green pigment is toxic.) If you are not planning to eat it the next day, an undressed, leftover salad can also be poured into your frozen container of soup vegetables.

Table scraps, leftover cooked foods, meat bones and poultry carcasses can all be used to improve the flavor and nutritional qualities of a soup. If your dinner companions are not actually radioactive, it is unlikely that the leftovers on anyone’s plate are more contaminated than the food was in its original state. Raw chickens are often contaminated with Salmonella. Your dining companions probably aren’t. Remember that the orts retrieved from your plates will be boiled in water for several hours. Pathogens will succumb.

Here’s what to save and how save it for broth making:

When you clean up after a carnivorous meal, the picked-clean carcass and bones can be put into a sturdy, one gallon freezer bag and frozen. Other plate scrapings such as baked potato skins, rice, or the occasional green bean can also be put in the soup-makings bag--when the bag is full, it’s time to make soup.

If you make a point of freezing any leftovers that you don’t intend to eat within a day, you will quickly build up a useful stockpile of soup-making materials, and your food-dollar will stretch farther than you ever thought possible. Cooked foods such as rice, potatoes, pasta, green beans, greens, squash, and almost any other food that someone has spent time and effort cooking and seasoning can be frozen and later added to your finished broth to make really delicious soups. Leftover bread can be used to thicken soups. But when you are freezing leftovers, detailed labeling is important, as is keeping highly seasoned foods segregated from each other. For instance, leftover lamb curry in a nice strong chicken broth would make a delicious soup, and leftover eggplant parmesan added to chicken broth is lovely, but mixing them together might not be a good idea.

If you are desperately low on cash, and dumpster-diving is not your style, check out the meat section of your local supermarket or grocery store. Many stores sell packages of turkey backs and necks quite cheaply: the price for these humble parts has hovered between twenty-nine and sixty-nine cents a pound for the past twenty years."

In the meantime, buy American. Buy locally produced food, goods and services; go to local performances and pay for the privilege; buy your Christmas presents from local artisans. If we don't support each other, we may well all go down together, clutching, grabbing, gasping, and with our arms locked firmly around each other's throats.

It's Like Butter

2010-08-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

I grew up eating margarine rather than butter because my father was on a “heart diet” after suffering a major heart attack at age 45. In retrospect, it becomes quite obvious that the cause was the 4-pack-a-day cigarette habit that my Dad kicked immediately after his heart attack. His doctor said, “Well, you could keep smoking…” The rest of the sentence didn’t need to be spelled out. It was: “and die.”

Despite the fact that he ignored all the dietary rules every day when he was at work, my Dad lived to be 92. Unfortunately, when I was a child I didn’t have the opportunity to ignore the dietary rules, so I was stuck eating vile margarine. Since I left home, I’ve completely ceased knowingly eating margarine, and the one time that I accidentally ingested margarine, on a still-warm slice of homemade bread that my husband and I brought to a friend’s house, I almost lost my lunch. Swallowing margarine when one is expecting butter is a terrible shock to the nervous system! The only greater olfactory shock I’ve ever experienced was when I was a child: I mistook a refrigerated bowl of raw liver for chocolate pudding, and snuck a surreptitious fingerful of it.

A Swedish study published in the July 2010 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has demonstrated that a diet that is rich in dairy fats correlates with a reduced risk of heart attack, especially in women. Eva Warensjö, and her colleagues at Uppsala University, analyzed the health, diet, and lifestyle (smoking or nonsmoking? Active or couch potato?) data that had been collected in three separate studies between 1987 and 1999, and compared it to the health status of these same individuals in the year 2000. Individuals within these groups who had suffered a heart attack were compared to individuals of similar age, gender, and region in Sweden. Blood concentrations of dairy-specific fats were compared, and the researchers found that the higher the circulating concentrations of dairy fats in a woman’s blood, the lower her risk of having a heart attack. A similar but less pronounced phenomenon was found in men.

Contrary to popular belief, which has been carefully nurtured by the soy industry, many studies have linked higher consumption of dairy foods with lower blood pressure. Said Warensjö: “I strongly believe that what we are seeing is not just a dairy-fat effect. I suspect it’s more a dairy-food effect.”

So much for the health benefits of soy milk over the genuine article. When someone can prove to me that humans evolved drinking soy milk, can show me exactly where the teats are located on a soy bean, and can demonstrate how one goes about milking a soybean, then perhaps I will listen seriously to the explanations about how “natural” soy milk is. I am still awaiting an adequate explaination of how soybeans, which are grown on humongous corporate agrifarms in the U.S. as well as on bulldozed ex-rainforest lands in Brazil, are better for the environment and the economy than are local dairies.

In the meantime, I plan to eat and drink as many dairy products as I can hold. Especially butter.

First Frog

2010-08-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it finally happened! We have liftoff! The first tiny frogonaut that successfully exited its natal
rainbarrel!

After many anxious weeks, and a couple of tragic developmental fatalities in the lowest rainbarrel, (apparently the metamorphosis from tadpole to frog is quite dangerous, especially at the limb emergence stage) yesterday evening I spotted a tiny tree frog resting on the edge of one of our rainbarrels. Walt and I hope that soon our thirteen rainbarrels will be devoid of tadpoles and our gardens will be full of treefrogs.

We are having the warmest summer we've had in years; buoys in Lake Superior have registered the highest temperatures since monitoring began. Global warming is as obvious as the watery haze in the astonishingly warm air. This summer has been so warm that it feels as if we're living in the subtropics, or at least in Iowa--we've been picking gallons of green beans every night, snacking on delicious crunchy cucumbers, savoring our first ripe tomatoes and crabapples, and watching our cantaloupes grow! (Melons are usually an impossibility in gardens as far north as ours.) The garden has grown so dense that a machete may soon become a necessity. I know I should be worried about climate change, but instead, I have been thoroughly enjoying the best gardening summer I have ever had. Perhaps I should relocate to somewhere more tropical, like Illinois, or Iowa...

Newly emerged tree frog sitting on the lip of a rainbarrel. Image is approximately life size.
August 12, 2010.

Biophobia

2010-08-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

My sister Annie sent me the following message, which cuts right to the chase.

THANK YOU

I want to thank all of you for your educational e-mails over the past year. I am totally screwed up now and have little chance of recovery.  I no longer open a bathroom door without using a paper towel, or have the waitress put lemon slices in my ice water without worrying about the bacteria on the lemon peel.  I can’t use the remote in a hotel room because I don’t know what the last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channels.  I can’t sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.  I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pastime while driving alone is picking one’s nose.

 Eating a little snack sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.

I can’t touch any woman’s purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom.   I MUST SEND MY SPECIAL THANKS to whoever sent me the one about rat poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing.

ALSO, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.  I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa’s Novena has granted my every wish.

I can’t have a drink in a bar because I’ll wake up in a bathtub full of ice with my kidneys gone.

I can’t eat at KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes, feet or feathers.

I can’t use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

THANKS TO YOU I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

BECAUSE OF YOUR CONCERN, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer buy gas without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer doesn’t crawl in my back seat when I’m filling up.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Fanta since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put ‘Under God’ on their cans.

I no longer use Cling Wrap in the microwave because it causes seven different types of cancer.

AND THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW I can’t boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face.. disfiguring me for life.

I no longer go to the movies because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS when I sit down.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda agents in disguise. And I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls toJamaica , Uganda ,Singapore , and Uzbekistan.

I no longer buy cookies from Neiman-Marcus since I now have their recipe.

THANKS TO YOU I can’t use anyone’s toilet but mine because a big black snake could be lurking under the seat and cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

AND THANKS TO YOUR GREAT ADVICE I can’t ever pick up $2.00 coin dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting to grab me as I bend over.

I no longer drive my car because buying gas from some companies supports Al Qaeda, and buying gas from all the others supports South American dictators.

I can’t do any gardening because I’m afraid I’ll get bitten by the Violin Spider making my hand and private parts fall off.

If you don’t send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 p.m.tomorrow afternoon, and the fleas from 120 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s ex-mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s best friend’s beautician.

Oh, by the way..... A German scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don’t bother taking it off now, it’s too late.

PS: I now keep my toothbrush in the living room, because I was told by e-mail that water splashes over 6 ft. out of the toilet.

I replied:

This is really funny!

I now lick my hands after shopping in the supermarket after not using those little antimicrobial wipes on the handlebars. I am also bringing home at least $20 worth of "slightly used" produce from the supermarket every time I go to feed the worms at Stowe School; yesterday I scored an entire flat of perfectly ripe, delicious mangos, and four containers of perfectly nice mushrooms. The worms don't know what they're missing.

Love, Ellen

P.S. I also make a point of sticking my finger in my nose after being out in a public place. I need to keep my immune system on its toes!

Any of you who are truly disgusted by the preceding are probably reading the wrong blog.

If you want to get a sense of the truly disgusting, go to Laura Erickson's blog at: lauraerickson.blogspot.com Laura is a bird maven who has written many wonderful books and has a radio show: "For the Birds." She is reporting from the Gulf Coast and witnessing first hand the way that BP is lying about the condition of the Gulf waters so that it can save itself a lot of money.

I have been living in a state of white hot rage ever since that oil rig exploded, and if it were up to me, those executives wouldn't be worried about saving their money, they'd be worried about saving their necks. This is why, as soon as I finished doing a full year's worth of papercut Buddhas, I almost immediately embarked on a new project: fiercely protective and very angry guardian demons. Stay tuned for the Green Barbarians contest!

Bag Bag

2010-07-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

This Monday was wet and thundery. My satellite internet connection was blocked by clouds and my lightening-phobia was preventing me from working in the garden. (This phobia, it turns out, is reality-based: a sixteen year old jogger was struck by lightening during the storm. If it is a realistic fear, is it still a phobia? Discuss amongst yourselves.)

So I decided to work on a project I had been putting off until a rainy day: making a bag bag.

Everyone who has ever met me quickly realizes that my memory is far less than it should be. It was ever thus; when I was a child, I never managed to travel the length of our hallway while retaining an intact memory of what I had originally set out to fetch. If and when I go senile, I'm not sure anyone will notice. But I digress.

Due to my extreme absent-mindedness, I frequently end up bagless in a store. (Well not exactly frequently. I actually shop very infrequently, but when I do shop, I end up bagless a high percentage of the time. Walt and I do keep cloth grocery bags in the vehicle, but these bags tend to be a bit sticky, and thus unsuitable for non-food purchases.) I never end up purseless in a store because decades ago I figured out that I am incapable of remembering a purse, so I stow all my necessary gear in a belt pack which is strapped to my body at all times when I am out and about.

Monday's rainy day project was to finally make a bag bag, an apparent redundancy that is actually intended to prevent redundancies. I had already assembled my materials: some tiny remnants of beautiful upholstery fabric and some nylon dresses from the 50 cent sale at Goodwill. So while the sky boomed overhead I cut out my bag pattern and deconstructed a nylon flower-print dress. A few hours later I had a small tapestry belt pack lined with flowery nylon, with four matching nylon shopping bags. I plan to hang this new apparatus from my belt pack when I go out.

Future shopping bags.

The bag bag.

Rolled up shopping bags.

I need longer arms!

It is ridiculously difficult to take a photo of oneself.

Garden is a Cumin In

2010-07-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Beans is a cumin in,

Sing Hot Damn!

Corneth crop,

Raspberries plop,

Sing Hot Damn!

And the Beebalm hums with bees,

And the nuthatches

Beep in trees,

Sing Hot Damn!

Sing of birdies that have fledged,

Tadpoles gorge at

Barrel’s edge,

Sing Hot Damn!

Beans is in with cumin now,

With the garlic, and some oil,

Sing Hot Damn!

By Ellen Sandbeck, with the most abject apologies to poetry lovers everywhere.

Out in the big world

2010-07-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

A few hours after our baby phoebes left the nest, I looked out the diningroom window, and spotted them squeezed together on a small branch just outside; they looked just like a row of plump, feathery plums. Then one of their parents joined them on the branch and stretched its wings, and all the babies began stretching their half life-size wings too. It is truly astonishing that those tiny little wings actually enable them to fly. I excitedly took a few pictures right through the glass, and then snuck out the door, went way around, and managed to take several more photos, full frontal ones.

Note the very annoyed expressions on their faces. Who can blame them?

During the same two weeks that our baby phoebes grew from featherless, eyeless little blobs, into lean, mean (well irritated anyway) flying machines, our tadpoles sucked up almost their entire algae supply and got a little bigger, though they are still legless.

The tadpoles were relocated into this rainbarrel yesterday. Notice how much algae they have already eaten--they have grazed all the algae off the white areas. Tadpoles eat algae starting at the top and working their way down the barrel. Remember that we first noticed these tadpoles on the same day two weeks ago that we first noticed that the phoebe eggs had hatched.

First Flight

2010-07-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

WE HAVE FLEDGED! Four baby phoebes!

When I was coming in the back door with Maisie this morning, I noticed a baby phoebe perched on the edge of the nest, looking rather competent and alert, and I thought, "I should take a picture of them before they're gone." So I went in and got the camera, and when I held it up to take the photo, four little feathery rockets launched off the the nest and sailed over to the vegetable garden. I guess they've had enough of me. I have, admittedly, been absolutely the worst sort of stage mother, and they've obviously had enough!

So, here is a retrospective of our little darlings' careers to date. If I knew how to add music to the blog, I would add something maudlin and sickly sweet. Imagine the Carpenters singing "We've Only Just Begun," ** as you view these adorable baby pictures.

**My junior high school Home Ec teacher played "We've Only Just Begun" during the fashion show featuring dreadful sewing projects that we were forced to put on (in all possible permutations of that phrase) for our mothers. I have practically broken out in hives every time I've heard that blasted song ever since.
I always referred to this class with great resentment, as "Home Ick," and I begged and pleaded to be allowed to take shop or mechanical drawing or art instead. My pleas went unanswered, because it was the 1970s; girls were forced to take Home Ec, and weren't allowed to take shop or mechanical drawing. (We were also forced to wear skirts or dresses, and the allowable height above the knee was strictly regulated by ruler in the principal's office. Offenders whose skirts were too high above the ground were sent home to change. The bra regulation was also strictly enforced, whether a girl actually needed one or not (many of the girls did not--this public school housed grades 6-8.). A suspected offender would be sent to the principal's office and forced to jump up and down while the male principal stared at her chest in order to determine whether or not she was wearing a bra.) Thank god(dess) for the changes wrought by the Feminist Movement!

But I digress. Now, to the stirring, imaginary strains of "We've Only Just Begun," enjoy the retrospective:

Mama Phoebe on the nest, 7/6/2010

   First sign of tadpoles in our rain barrel on
   the same day that the phoebe chicks hatched.
   7/7/2010

The first baby photo 7/10/2010

Feathers coming in. 7/17/2010

Full nest. 7/19/2010

An even fuller nest. 7/20/2010

The day before the empty nest 7/21/2010

At The Insectivores' House

2010-07-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

The baby phoebes are growing rapidly. They now have feathers and are starting to look like respectable birds. The harried parents dart back and forth carrying insects, in a desperate attempt to assuage their youngsters’ ravenous appetites. Walt and I are still amazed that our fairly constant , noisy use of the backdoor right under the nest has been so well tolerated by the phoebe family. Apparently, a secure, warm, dry location for a nest more than makes up for the constantly slamming door and the exuberantly noisy young dog. (Actually, once she is done announcing her presence, Maisie spends quite a lot of time quietly lying on the back stoop right under the phoebe nest. I think she considers the phoebes her friends. She pretty much considers everything and everybody her friend.)

Aside from the adorableness factor, Walt and I are very happy to have phoebes because phoebes eat flying insects. Raising a single baby phoebe from egg to fledgling represents an enormous investment in time, energy, and insects, and we have a terrible overabundance of mosquitoes and deerflies around here. The deerflies are especially bothersome, because they are so persistent, so loud and annoying, and so difficult to swat. And when they get a chance, they tend to chew rather large holes in their victims. (A chawed spot on my leg has taken more than two weeks to heal.) A few deerflies ride into our house on the dogs every day, and occasionally our rugs get stained when we unwittingly step on a blood-bloated deerfly that was too heavy to fly.

Yesterday Maisie and I walked down to the lake, and in preparation for the trip, I applied double-sticky carpet tape to my much-abused 20 year old Tilley hat. The deer flies are truly terrible on the trail down to the lake, and I wanted to see whether I could catch a few as they smacked into my hat. I only caught three, though I walked right down through the valley of the shadow of deerflies, and the evil little devils were banging into my hat right, left, topside, and below. I consider my catch of three to be a very unimpressive showing, especially when compared to spider that resides in the lower righthand corner of our diningroom window. The window spider has also caught three deerflies, though the concentration of deerflies in our house is infinitely smaller than the deerfly population along the trail to Fish Lake! Walt and I actually witnessed the deerfly being caught in the spiderweb, and then watched, fascinated, as the spider repeatedly bit and the subdued the much larger deerfly, which otherwise would certainly have destroyed the entire web.

And this morning I found a beautiful fat toad attempting to bury himself in the gravel drive right in front of our garage. Though he matched the gravel beautifully, his camouflage would be no match for a car tire, so I moved him to our vegetable garden. We need to preserve all the insectivores we can, on this insect planet!

Update, Tadpoles, Phoebes, Robins

2010-07-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

Mama and Papa phoebe are very busy this morning, rushing past each other as they ferry insects to their
fuzzy progeny.

Mr. and Mrs. Robin still don't seem to have any chicks. Sometimes I wonder about the parenting skills of robins... In past summers, we have spotted many a de-nested baby robin scurrying aimlessly along on the ground, or else lying featherless and lifeless on the ground under a sadly under-engineered nest.

Yesterday evening I spent another hour transferring tadpoles from their nearly algae-free natal rain barrel into two more barrels. We now have tadpoles in five of our thirteen rain barrels. I hope our algae production can keep up!

Usually we have to put Bacillus thuringensis israeliensis (B.t.i) dunks in our dark, opaque, open-top rainbarrels in order to kill off the mosquito larvae, (the translucent white rainbarrels have proven to be completely unsuitable as nursery ponds for mosquito larvae, so we don't put B.t. in those barrels) but this year the larvae cannot compete with the hordes of ravenous tadpoles.

I have high hopes that our upstart tadpole-breeding operation will be a success; that next year we will be deafened by the singing of myriad Grey treefrogs; and that our rainbarrels will serve as their nurseries. If our frog-breeding program is successful, next frog season we may need to wear earplugs to bed, and if we manage to hatch out another enormous batch of tadpoles, I hope to share tadpoles with other would-be frog ranchers!

Raising batches of babies, feathered and otherwise

2010-07-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

Walt and I are happily overseeing the raising of three different batches of youngsters this summer.

In the ten years we have lived here, we have been lucky enough to hatch out several nestfulls of phoebe chicks, which have been hatched, raised and fledged in successive nests built atop the light over our back door. There have been a few years without backdoor phoebes, usually because Mama and Papa phoebe have been frightened away when we used our back door. Though last year was a rather sad summer, with a rather lonely and angry male Phoebe who seemed unable to find a mate, and whose cry, “Phoebe! Phoebe!” sounded quite unusually loud and angry all summer, as if he were yelling: “Phoebe! God Damn It! Phoebe!” And there have been a few summers when we eschewed the use of the back door, in order to encourage the phoebes.

But this year was a bit different: the back door leads directly to Maisie’s fenced-in yard, and we really needed to be able to use it. Despite this, and much to our delight, a pair of phoebes built a tidy little nest atop the backdoor light, and were taking turns sitting on the nest. These phoebes did not seem terribly troubled by our frequent, and sometimes noisy use of the back door (Maisie is a very enthusiastic and vocal girl). The phoebes’ persistence led us to believe that at least one of the pair might have grown up above the door and considered the spot home. While this was going on, a pair of robins built a rather slapdash nest above the light over the garage man-door.

Robins' nest on garage light

A few days ago, the fuzzy head of a phoebe chick appeared above the rim of the nest. Walt and I stood on the tiny back landing and kvelled over it, marveling that a nearly naked little creature whose eyes were not yet open could be so alarmingly adorable.

Phoebe nest on backdoor light. Notice the fuzzy coif.

The very next day, I glanced over at our rain barrels and noticed hundreds of tiny black swimmers in one of our rain barrels. I ran over to the barrel thinking that we were hatching out enough mosquitoes to exsanguinate the entire neighborhood, and skidded to a halt in front of a barrel teeming with tiny black tadpoles that looked remarkably like sperm. Walt and I are well acquainted with the tadpoles’ parents, a charming pair of Grey Treefrogs, which despite their name are a bright, neon green. These treefrogs had been serenading us from perches either near or on our rain barrels at a nearly deafening decibel level every night for months. This watery new batch of babies made me very proud, until I noticed that the adult phoebes did not seem to be either in or near their nest. We had only seen one baby phoebe, and we had spent rather a long time cooing and taking baby photos. What if we had frightened the parents into abandoning their nest? I felt desolate.

That was a few days ago. Yesterday, Walt spotted three little fuzzy phoebe heads peeking above the rim of the nest, and Mama and Papa phoebe were busily ferrying insects to their chicks. Then yesterday evening, I realized that the tadpoles had cleared nearly all the algae out of their rain barrel, and were consequently in danger of starving to death. I spent more than an hour using a goldfish net to transfer tadpoles to adjacent rain barrels that still contained lush crops of algae.

Notice the relatively clean walls of the barrel. Just a week ago the interior of this barrel was completely coated with algae. Mosquito larvae also eat algae, and cannot survive in the same barrel as this mob of tadpoles.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Inside Out

2010-06-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I went to the Federal Prison Camp in Hermantown to get the training I need in order to start working again on the big vermicomposting bin I set up there about ten years ago.

Things have changed a bit since I last took the training course. Ten years ago, there was a lot of talk about the dangers of contraband, which included such items as cigarettes, alcohol, weapons, electric razors and, of all things, pens. (Apparently, the pens and electric razors could be jury-rigged to make crude tattoo machines.) Now, pens are no longer considered contraband, (I specifically asked about this, since I’ve been worried for years about the pen I misplaced in the composting area ten years ago) and there was no talk of electric razors, and there was a lot of talk about cell phones, which barely existed ten years ago. The major emphasis of the training has not changed, however: the importance of never bringing anything from the outside in to any inmates, and of never taking anything back out for them. No matter how small or insignificant the object, bringing anything in to a Federal inmate is a Federal offense. I adhered to these principles very strictly when I was volunteering ten years ago, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from spending time working in the prison, it’s that I definitely don’t want to end up in one myself! (The other permanent change that working in the prison has made on me is that before my stint at the prison, at tax time I would merely rant and rave against the inequities of the tax system, whereas now at tax time, I am not only infuriated, I am also terrified that I am going to make some kind of stupid mistake and end up incarcerated. (The Hermantown Federal Prison Camp is a minimum security facility. None of the inmates are violent, and a fairly high percentage of them seem to be tax evaders.)

The Officers who did the training emphasized that even though some contraband items might seem trivial to those of us on the outside, contraband in the prison causes major problems, and the drug that causes the biggest problems is tobacco. Yes folks, of all the mind-bending substances that can get smuggled into a prison in various ingenious ways, some of which are too disgusting to write about here, tobacco causes the biggest problems as well as the most broken noses. This is because tobacco is far more expensive on the prison black market than marijuana is: a single carton of over-the-counter cigarettes can go for $600, and a single cigarette can cost $3. This interesting price structure reflects the fact that tobacco is extremely addictive and marijuana isn’t.

As soon as I heard this interesting information, all my brain cells perked up, and I decided it was time to do a little reading up on medicinal marijuana, and the actual effects that marijuana has on the human body.

In 2002, researchers at the University of Minnesota published the results of a study that demonstrated that doses of morphine comparable to those administered to human patients after cancer surgery, stimulated the growth of breast cancer cells that had been grafted into laboratory mice. The researchers wrote in Cancer Research: "These results indicate that clinical use of morphine could potentially be harmful."

This study was largely ignored until fairly recently, when a slew of corroborating evidence emerged from molecular models, experiments on laboratory animals, and the medical histories of cancer patients. All of these studies show that opioid drugs given during and after cancer surgery stimulate the growth and spread of certain cancerous tumors.

Evidence suggests that cancers thrive on exposure to opioids, especially morphine, which is the most common narcotic administered for the relief of surgical pain. The morphine acts like a fertilizer, speeding the expansion and growth of the networks of blood vessels that supply the cancerous tumors with nutrients. (This process of vascularization is called angiogeneis.) Researchers also suspect that opioids make blood vessels leaky, rendering them more susceptible to colonization by cancer cells. This is very bad news, because when surgeons remove a tumor, they inevitably leave behind a few straggler cancer cells which must be dealt with by the immune system.

Interestingly, studies on laboratory animals have shown that cannabinoids, the active compounds found in marijuana, inhibit tumor angiogenesis. Other studies have shown that cannabinoids are effective against many kinds of chronic and acute pain. Yet other studies have demonstrated that marijuana is not, for all practical purposes, addictive.

So let’s see, it’s perfectly legal for physicians to administer and prescribe opiates during and after cancer surgery, even though it has been known for centuries that opiates are horrifically addictive. It’s perfectly legal for physicians to administer opiates to cancer patients, even though it is known that opiates speed the growth of cancerous tumors, yet it is a Federal Crime for anyone to use or possess marijuana, which is not addictive, slows the growth of cancer, is extremely helpful in alleviating the pain and symptoms of hideous diseases such as multiple. And, of course, the efficacy of marijuana against glaucoma has been known for decades.

Since I am not an addictive sort of person--in fact all the alcohol I’ve drunk in my entire life could probably fit in a single wine glass--and I don’t take drugs or use marijuana, I feel that I am a perfect person to say this: it is stupid, wasteful, expensive, and inhumane to keep marijuana illegal. Illegal pot is great for the drug dealers, tobacco growers and the alcoholic beverage industry, great for people who own or have invested in privately-run prisons, but really bad for the rest of us.

Stepping into another's life

2010-06-25T13:03:00.000-07:00

Walt and I drove to Chicago a couple of weeks ago for Addie’s graduation from the University of Chicago. Dmitri and his girlfriend were subletting an apartment in the Pilsen neighborhood for a month, from the friend of a friend, so the entire family would be in attendance at the festivities.

Dmitri had suggested that Walt and I stay in the apartment, rather than in a hotel, in order to save money. So we did, and we did. A lot of money, actually, enough to pay for quite a lot of nice meals in restaurants.

The living arrangements in the sublet apartment were interesting nearly to the point of hilarity, and we all spent quite a bit of time speculating about the apartment’s Legitimate Occupant, who was rumored to be an environmental engineer who was working on a project in China. Why, for instance, was his bed up on stilts seven feet in the air? And furthermore, I asked, as I unsuccessfully attempted to leap onto the bed like a spawning salmon negotiating a waterfall, why hadn’t this engineer included an access ladder when he designed this lofty bed? Accessing the bed required standing on the windowsill, then on the dresser, and then a big heave onto the bed, which loomed up at my collarbone height. I found myself unable to jump with the requisite gusto, aware as I was, that if I missed, there was a distinct possibility that I would fall backwards through the third story window. Though there was a tiny iron fire escape out there, its presence was somehow less than reassuring. Dmitri laughed at my acrophobia, but I clambered down from the dresser to the windowsill and thence to the floor, and then shoved an even taller dresser across the room (under the bed the whole way) and then up against the other dresser. This second dresser provided the last, necessary step I needed in order to conquer the bed. The next pressing question was, “Did the Legitimate Occupant have a sex life?” And if so, was his partner significantly taller than my 5’7”?

I made up the bed beneath the ten-foot ceiling, and Walt and I soon discovered that the light was connected to a fan that automatically turned on when the switch was flipped. In an apparently uncharacteristic fit of practicality, the apartment’s Legitimate Occupant had removed the fan’s blades, which though dull, might have caused some consternation, revolving as they would have, at approximately throat altitude of anyone sitting up in the bed. However, the din from the fan’s motor was hideous as it revolved hot, furiously and futilely, so Walt pulled the corresponding beaded chain and turned it off.

Dmitri had already discovered that the Legitimate Occupant was not much for cleaning, and it had taken our valiant son a full day’s hard labor to scrub the bathroom up to minimum standards, even though our minimum standards tend to be far more lenient than the average. However, after a hard day of excavating the bathroom, he had not had enough energy to tackle the melted and ossified botanical remnants that were still plastered to the floor of the refrigerator. The kitchen cupboards contained two plates and a couple of glasses. The drawers contained no silverware. There were no kitchen towels, but there was a diverting installation piece which consisted of a single large kitchen knife stuck into a block of molded Styrofoam packing material that had been glued to the kitchen wall in a location conveniently to hand for an intruder coming through the front door, but a bit less so for anyone actually working in the kitchen. Was it art, or was it a knife block? And what about the diptych that consisted of 1) a single wooden kitchen chair sitting on the floor with a single spindle sticking up from the seat, and 2) the chair's missing back with the remaining spindles, hanging from a large hook that stuck out from the kitchen wall. The part of the chair that had legs reminded me irresistibly of the old taunt: “Sit on it and spin.” Was this art, or was it just a reminder to buy wood glue? (We were inclined toward art after Walt discovered a perfectly good bottle of wood glue on top of the refrigerator.) Did the Legitimate Occupant ever have friends over, or did he conduct all his interpersonal relationships elsewhere? Did he have interpersonal relationships at all? And why was the glass globe of the kitchen light unscrewed from its moorings and hanging from its pullchains down where any reasonably tall person could bang into it? Walt pulled the torture chair up under the kitchen light and put the globe back where it belonged.

And was the open-fronted cardboard box that was glued to the living room wall, and which contained a few small, diverting objects, including the petrified skin of a baked potato, art, or just a novel new way to store trash?

All in all, it was an extremely diverting place to stay, and it gave me a marvelous idea. Someone should build a hotel and call it “Gone Slummin.” All the rooms could be furnished in the inventive, inscrutable, and amusing ways in which people without unlimited money tend to furnish their domiciles. These specially decorated hotel rooms could feature electronics with quirks that must be figured out and negotiated, light fixtures that must be babied along, hot and cold faucets that are plumbed backwards, and interesting configurations of beds and bedding. Rich clients who have only experienced perfection in their surroundings could check in and have a wonderful, stimulating time. Perhaps the millionaires in the U.S. Senate, who just refused to extend unemployment benefits to Americans who are suffering from the Recession, could stay at the "Gone Slummin" hotel and could get a taste of how the other 99 percent of us live. There could even be robotic rats and cockroaches roaming the halls (we don’t want to get too real here, do we?). Of course, by the time the Gone Slummin Hotel actually opens, many of the people who lost their unemployment benefits will have moved on, into the great outdoors.

Anyone out there who would like to start up a “Gone Slummin” hotel, is welcome to the idea.

Mural in the Pilsen Neighborhood of Chicago.No comment necessary.

2010-06-24T14:49:00.001-07:00

Overlap, How to Categorize?

2010-06-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there is so much overlap between different parts of my life, that I can't figure out where things go. The following blog post, from "A Buddha A Day," could have fit equally well here with the Green Barbarians...

Live and Learn!

I have just begun reading "Gems of Wisdom from the Seventh Dalai Lama," translation and commentary by Glenn H. Mullin. I was drawn to this book by this sentence in the forward, which was quoted in the book catalogue: "All of the vast and profound teachings of the Buddha, as well as of all earlier Buddhist masters of India and Tibet, are elucidated through similes and metaphors that employ such earthy images as smelly farts, body odor, wild horses, slimy monsters, mindless lunatics and so forth." How could anyone possibly resist such a book?

So far, I have not been disappointed. I have learned that there are six root delusions or afflicted emotions: anger, attachment, instinctual behavior, arrogance, jealousy, and complacence. I was very pleased when I read this list, because so far, I seem to be immune to one of these root delusions, jealousy. I have a bit of work to do to root out the other five delusions, however. Complacency may prove to be especially difficult to root out though, now that I have discovered that I am immune to one of the other five delusions.

The introduction to the book includes very short biographies of the first seven Dalai Lamas, and I decided to search for Buddha images from the monasteries that were founded by some of these early Dalai Lamas (the current Dalai Lama is the Fourteenth). When I looked up the monastery at Litang, which was established by the Third Dalai Lama in the mid-sixteenth century, I was astonished to find photos of the giant Buddha carved out of a mountain, which, over the course of this year of doing papercuts of the Buddha, I have already done several times. This 1,300 year old Buddha is 71 meters tall, and is by far the biggest in the world, which makes it very very famous and very frequently photographed, yet I did not recognize the name "Litang." There is a very good reason for this. This mountain of a Buddha, according to the official Chinese map, sits in western Sichuan Provence, in a town called "Leshan," but according to the Tibetans who have always lived there, they live in the small town of Litang in Kham Provence, Tibet.

Over the past year, I have seen hundreds of photos of this Buddha, all of them labeled, "Leshan, China." It was not until I looked specifically for "Litang," that I learned that "Leshan" is actually part of occupied Tibet, and a particularly troublesome part of Tibet, at that. The Tibetan citizens of Litang have put up particularly strong resistance to the Chinese occupation of their land. In 1956, the Chinese People's Liberation Army bombed the Litang Monastery, destroying it, and there was an anti-Chinese riot at the horse racing festival in 2007. It is illegal to possess pictures of the Dalai Lama in Litang, and there is a strong Chinese police and military presence in the town.

Be skeptical of official governmental and/or industrial accounts. Approach all questions from every imaginable direction, and you may find that the object of your inquiry becomes virtually unrecognizable from your new vantage point.

Potatoes like Sea Anemones

2010-06-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was my birthday, which I spent in the one place I most wanted to be: celebrating our friend Carolyn’s birthday at her birthday party. Carolyn is about five days older than I am, though light years ahead of me in soul and spirit.

Every year when Tim, Carolyn’s husband, invites us to Carolyn’s birthday barbeque, he asks me to bring my “famous” potato salad, which I am happy to do, because I am terrible at making the small decisions in life, such as deciding what to bring to a potluck. Put a Baskin Robbins’ 32 flavors of ice cream menu in front of me, and I become a quivering mass of indecision, yet I seem to have very little trouble making the really big life decisions: “Let’s get married!” “Yes!” “Let’s have a baby!” Yes!” And I routinely volunteer to do very large jobs that I have never done before in my life, at the drop of a hat, all the while thinking: “I can do that! I already know how to do part of it. I’ll figure it out as I go.” I call this my “Sewing the parachute on the way out of the airplane” philosophy. Astonishingly, this usually works just fine, because I never volunteer to do anything that I am not convinced that I can figure out. But the small decisions in life stymie me: “Which ancient outfit from my woefully inadequate wardrobe should I wear to a reception?” I have no idea. “Which entrée should I order?” Maybe the waiter could come back in a year or two when I’ve had time to figure it out. Actually my restaurant indecisiveness has gotten a lot better in the past few years, because I’ve finally figured out that it doesn’t matter whether or not I order exactly the most delicious item on the menu. It’s just one meal; there will be others.

Back to the potato salad: When I pulled the bag of potatoes up off the floor of the spice cabinet, I discovered that there had been a magical transformation. The potatoes had started to sprout and now resembled a very homely flock of sea anemones. (Which made me sadly ponder the fate of sea life in the Gulf of Mexico: surely sea anemones cannot survive the toxic tentacles of spewed oil.) It is that potatoey time of year when even incarcerated potatoes are trying to reach the light, and the ones bedded down in my garden are shooting up so fast that I can barely keep them adequately covered.

Luckily for me, most sprouted potatoes are still perfectly edible, as long as one removes the sprouts. (Green potatoes are the dangerous ones—potatoes, like tomatoes, eggplant, tobacco, and petunias, are in the deadly nightshade family-- the green pigment in this plant family is toxic.) So I scrubbed and rinsed, removed the eyes, and then started peeling, and all the potatoes but one were perfectly fine.

Ellen’s “Famous” Potato Salad Recipe

(feeds a bunch of people)

A colander of potatoes (no green ones). Peeled, cut into bite-sized pieces, and then boiled until just barely cooked through.

Half a dozen eggs that were not born yesterday, hardboiled (Eggs that are still wet behind the ears, as it were, make terrible hard boiled eggs. No matter how long you boil them, really fresh eggs never achieve the lovely, rubbery consistency that is requisite of a hard boiled egg. We learned this the hard way: our lovely fresh eggs are so fresh that we have to set them aside for at least a week in order to make decent hard boiled eggs.)

One medium onion, coarsely diced and then soaked in extremely salty water for several hours. (Peel the onion. Cut off and discard both ends. Dice coarsely. Put in a bowl just big enough to hold the pieces, pour a tablespoon of salt over the onion, cover with cold water, then put a lid on the bowl and refrigerate for several hours.)

A couple of dill pickles or a couple dozen pickled dilly beans.

Fresh dill and/or cilantro, chopped. (If this is a winter potato salad, use dried dill.)

A cup of mayonnaise

curry powder

cumin

paprika

garlic powder, or fresh garlic cloves, squeezed

freshly ground black pepper

soy sauce or seasoned salt

Mix the mayonnaise with curry powder, cumin, paprika, garlic, freshly ground black pepper and soy sauce or seasoned salt, to taste.

Coarsely chop the hard boiled eggs and the pickles.

Use a strainer to drain the water out of the soaked, chopped onion, and rinse very thoroughly, to remove the excess salt.

Chop the dill and cilantro.

Stir the chopped eggs, pickles, dill, cilantro, and rinsed chopped onion into the cooked potatoes. Add the mayonnaise and stir in gently.

Serve.

Our Perfect Trifecta

2010-05-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Walt and I made one of our very rare shopping trips together last night. We needed to find an ottoman so we can sit together on the couch. Walt's long skinny back gets sore if his feet aren't up, and he'd spotted an ad for a storage ottoman for half price, so off we went, with our worm money clutched in our hot little fists.

The mall was nearly empty, perhaps because "American Idol" was down to its last two contestants of the season. We trotted up Penney's escalator, hot on the the trail of our ottoman, wandered around in disconnected circles for a while, until finally Walt asked the young saleslady for help. She brought him to the aisle where the ottoman should have been, but wasn't. She explained that those ottomans have been extremely popular, selling out immediately when they go on sale, and then checked the status of the item on her computer. She then checked to see whether any ottomans were lurking in two different storage areas. They weren't. We thanked her and headed for the escalator. We were halfway down, when we heard hallooing from above. The saleslady was on the escalator above us, waving frantically and calling out that she'd found one! After a brief flirtation with the idea of running up the down escalator, Walt and I decided to use the up escalator. We all got upstairs and the saleslady triumphantly showed us a box with the coveted ottoman inside. We checked it out and decided to commit, but not before we took a photo of our favorite saleslady, whose name is Anna, sitting on the box. Walt took the photo with his Trackphone. (Tracphone? Tracfone?). He'd never used the camera on that phone before, so Anna figured it out for him. When we figure out how to get the photo onto the computer, I will post her photo. Talk about fantastic service!

Our next stop was Sears, to check out the lawn mowers. Thanks to hot weather and heavy rains while we were running our Laverme's Worms booth at an event in southern Minnesota, our lawn had outgrown our ability to mow it. Our manual push mower can't cut grass that is more than 5 inches high, our rechargeable mower only holds a charge for about a minute and a half, and our trusty old plug-in electric mower--which Walt found at the dump about 15 years ago and jury-rigged with an interior light switch, (the kind with a plastic toggle)--exited with a dramatic puff of smoke last summer. So it was either get another lawn mower, or get a sheep. Much as I would love a sheep, the truth of the matter is that we can't afford the fences right now. The clerk at Sears was extremely helpful too.

Next stop, the supermarket, where we got stuck behind someone who was using lots of coupons. The clerk at the next cash register was just closing down, and explained that she was off duty, but then she suddenly decided to open up again and check us out, because we'd been waiting so long. We handed our groceries across to her and then jumped aisles.

So we accomplished a perfect trifecta last night! Three stores, three fabulous people going way out of their way to help us. We left the supermarket gigging and grateful.

It occurs to me that we little people need to stick together and treat each other really well, on both sides of the counter, the restaurant table, the bar, and the desk, as well as on the bus, the subway, and in every other place where we interact closely with people we don't know well. And it's high time we started interacting with people rather than with their bank accounts. Rich people, many of whom do not deserve it, tend to get fabulous service wherever they go. Many of us tend to be extra nice to really wealthy people, perhaps hoping that their wealth will somehow rub off on us, or that they will take a shine to us and drop some money on us. Usually this does not happen--most rich people did not get that way by giving away their money, and in fact, many (but not all, of course) of these rich people have gotten wealthy by taking advantage of the rest of us.

We all deserve kindness. We all deserve to be treated like human beings. All of us, all of us, no matter what side of the aisle, the counter, the desk, or the tracks we are on.

How Not To Make Money by Entering Contests

2010-05-17T07:06:00.000-07:00

I've just entered another idea contest on the Jovoto site. I'm not asking anyone to go and vote on it--it's been made clear to me that the site is not hospitable to casual viewers--my friend Ann just visited the site in order to rate my idea, and this is what she wrote about the process:

"I think I know why no ratings. You can comment without going through their rather extensive registration process, but rating requires logging in, responding too their login email, returning to their page, giving them more information including your phone number, for which they require the country code in correct format (it took me a google search for usa country code, and 6 tries to get the format right. USA country code is, embarassingly, 1, but google give it as 001, but the format that the site requires is +1). And one has to log out of the site and then return to the site after the code number has been text-messaged to one's cell phone, and then one must enter the code number, log out again, and log in again to find the idea one wants and rate it. All this is a bit of a disincentive for rating which does not exist for commenting. But I rated you!"

Though my chances of winning a contest on this site are probably nearly almost zero, (see above) sometimes having a new problem to work on is stimulating. And, as I am often told, I am ridiculously optimistic. I figure that my chances of winning a contest are infinitely better if I enter a contest than if I don't. So a couple of days ago, when I was checking the progress of my entry in the BetaCup Challenge contest (which had been stalled three votes short of getting onto the board for more than two weeks) and noticed a new contest that was open to the general public, rather than just to the members of Jovoto, I checked it out. The contest was to design a publicity campaign for a medical care search-engine called "ZocDoc," and as soon as I read the briefing, I got an idea for an entry. When all one's waking hours seem to be devoted to devising more creative ways in which not to earn money, adding one more does not seem to be a big deal. (As I remarked to Ann, it's absolutely astonishing how much money I am able to not make in a single day.) In a particularly inspired fit of non-money making, I spent two full days working on my idea, though the grand prize for this contest is $1,000; first prize in the BetaCup Challenge is $10,000. If I were being completely rational about this, obviously I would only waste my time on not winning a relatively large amount of money rather than on not winning a relatively small amount of money. So here are the papercuts I did in order to illustrate my idea. I had a lot of fun doing them. In fact, I had so much fun that now I'm contemplating doing a series of images of amusing minor mishaps. I wonder if there's a category in the "Guiness Book of World Records" for the most money not earned in a year?

Eyelash mites, powers of ten, and the universe

2010-05-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

I just watched a wonderful TED talk by Richard Dawkins, in which he pleaded with atheists to come out of the closet. So here I am, out of the closet, and ready to add my own little analogy to the cause. As Professor Dawkins said, everyone is an atheist when it comes to other people’s gods; atheists just take the process one god further. I think he may be right, no Ba’al worshippers have come to my door lately.

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html

So here is why I don’t believe in a personal god who is interested in me:

I have a healthy population of two different species of eyelash mites living in the thickets of my eyelashes and eyebrows. The Demodex folliculorum mites are slightly larger than the Demodex brevis, but these mites are all between 0.3 and 0.4 mm long. For simplicity’s sake, we will use the 0.4 mm measurement when referring to these microscopic creatures.

I am sixty-seven inches, or 1701.8 mm tall. This makes me 4,254.5 times as long as my largest eyelash mites. (This equals 4.2545 x 10 to the second power.)

The diameter of the earth is approximately 8,000 miles, or 13,000 kilometers. I am 0.0017018 kilometers long. The earth’s diameter is 7,638,970.5 times as long as I am. (This is 7.6389705 x 10 to the fifth power.)

The diameter of the solar system is 11,827,040,000 km, which is

69,497,238,000 times as long as I am. (This is 6.9497238 x 10 to the eighth power.)

Our home galaxy, The Milky Way, is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km across. (This is 10 to the 17^th power.) This is about fourteen powers of ten bigger than I am. This is 10 followed by fourteen zeros-- or one-hundred quadrillion.

Now remember that I am just a titch more than 4,000 times as big as my eyebrow mites, and I pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to them, even though they are living right over my nose, as it were. I do not care what they think of me. I do not care what their politics are, whether they get along well together, what type of dwellings they construct, whether or not they ever think of me, and I certainly don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not they are praying to me—I who am their entire world--using the proper form. It is enough for me to know that my mites are cleaning the dead skin cells and oils out of my eyelashes and eyebrows, and metabolizing so efficiently that they never excrete anything at all. (That’s why I don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not my mites are worshipping me properly—I can’t not give a mite’s ass, because there is no such thing.) In fact, it doesn’t matter whether or not I ever think of my eyebrow mites, because they will carry on anyway, just as I will carry on whether or not they ever think of me. I am not a particularly dignified person, but it is, frankly, beneath my dignity to worry about the attitudes of the mites that inhabit the furry parts of my face. And this is saying a lot, because for the last two decades, I have paid quite a lot of attention to the wants and needs of my rather large flock of composting earthworms (each of which, by the way, is ENORMOUSLY bigger than an eyelash mite).

The truth of the matter is, that I am not even large enough to be considered a mite on the face of the earth, since the earth’s diameter is more than seven million times longer than I am, while I myself am only a tad more than four thousand times longer than my own mites. So what I simply cannot understand is, how could anyone on this planet be capable of believing that the power behind the universe-- and the universe, mind you, is so enormous that both my calculator and my brain would explode if I attempted to figure out how much bigger it is than I—that this enormous thing, the universe, would give a mite’s ass whether or not humans were properly worshipping it, saying the right incantations, eating the proper food at the proper time, etc.? Since the diameter of our local galaxy is one hundred quadrillion times as long as I am, and according to NASA, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe, how could I possibly stagger around under the enormous weight of ego required for me to be able to believe that the power of the Universe could possibly be in the slightest measure interested in something as infinitesimally small as I? And if one were to decide to attempt to placate a more local god, one that might be small enough to care about a single human being, how would one choose? Should I choose a domestic god that would inhabit an altar in my house? Or is that too small? Would I worship a neighborhood god? Or is that still too small? Do I worship the county god, the state god, the country’s god, the continent’s god, or our planet’s god? If there is an Earth God, who is in charge of the other planets and the sun? Is there a Solar System God? If so, why would something large enough to have made the Solar System, which is eight powers of ten larger than I am, be interested in me? And, perhaps more to the point as I go about my daily life, why would I be interested in placating a God that made our Solar System, but not our galaxy? Why wouldn’t I want to appeal right to the top? But that’s obviously impossible, since I am not even large enough to be a creditable earthmite.

So, until further notice, my eyelash mites and I will have to just bumble along, doing the best we can.

Raising strong, brave children

2010-05-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

I just watched a wonderful TED talk by Gever Tulley, on 5 Dangerous Things to encourage kids to do. Mr. Tulley has founded a school called "The Tinkering School," a summer camp that helps elementary age children learn how to take things apart and how to put other things back together using a wide variety of tools, including power tools. This concept flies in the face of the American attitude that no amount of risk is acceptable. However, as Mr. Tulley points out in his talk, if you protect your children at all times from everything that is sharper than a golf ball, the first time they encounter anything sharp, they will really hurt themselves.
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html

I wrote about the dangers of an overprotected childhood in the "Little Barbarians" chapter of "Green Barbarians." Here is Mr. Tulley's list of the 5 dangerous things you should allow your children to do:

1) Let your children play with fire (NOTE: Outdoors! Outdoors with a bonfire. This should them them to get their yayas out in the open so they won't feel compelled to play with fire secretly, in a closet, with a cigarette lighter. Think about it.)

2) Every young child should be given ownership of a pocketknife.

3) Throw things.

4) Deconstruct appliances.

5) Demonstrate to your child how easy it is to break a law, for instance by downloading music onto your iPod and then listening to it on the same computer you used to download the music. This apparently breaks copyright laws. OR Allow your child to drive the car, under close supervision, in a large field or parking lot.

Interestingly, we did allow our children to do all of these things, and neither one of them ever sustained any lasting damage from these practices. But the tale I would like to tell centers around blades:

We handed our son his first real blade, a blunt little pruner, when he was not quite two years old, and assigned him the job of trimming the dead ends off the juniper bushes at our landscaping job. It kept him busy all day, and he never cut himself at all. We gave each of our children a small Swiss Army pocketknife when they turned three (Addie's knife was a very lovely pink) and neither of them ever sustained (or caused) any damage that was significant enough to come to our attention. By the time they were seven or eight years old, Dmitri and his friend Frank owned a machete apiece, which they used frequently to hack their way through the woods. They never cut themselves enough that I ever found out about it. The only woods-related injury I remember was the one Frank sustained when he tried pushing a large dead tree over, and the top half fell off and hit him on the head, knocking him out.

However, we did not get off unscathed from these practices: One fine summer day we went on a day-trip and brought along a friend of Dmitri's who, unbeknownst to us, was not accustomed to handling knives... As soon as we arrived at the state park, Dmitri, Frank, and this friend, who I will call X, ran off and disappeared from view. A short while later, the boys came roaring back again, and X was gushing blood from a frighteningly deep gash in the palm of his hand. Dmitri and Frank had, of course, brought their pocketknives along with them for the hike, and they had given X a very comprehensive knife-safety talk and demonstration before handing him the knife, yet he had almost immediately managed to slice through the flesh and tendons of his hand. X was thirteen years old, and had never been allowed to use a knife before. We felt horribly guilty. End of outing.

Life, Death and old hens

2010-05-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

Walt and I just returned from a weekend of manning our Laverme's Worms booth at the Living Green Expo at the State Fairgrounds in St. Paul. I usually spend the day after such a venture in a fugue state, and yesterday was no exception. So here are a few thoughts that I would have written down yesterday, if I'd been capable of thought:

While I was scurrying around on Friday, preparing for the Expo, I couldn't help noticing that our oldest hen, a four year old Barred Rock, was on her last, scaly legs. She hadn't managed to totter into the henhouse the night before, so had spent the night in the hens' coolhouse in the yard. Walt hadn't counted feathery heads on Thursday evening when he closed up the henhouse, and hadn't noticed that a hen was missing. (It seems that every time we neglect to count heads, someone is actually missing, and the hens seem to go missing only on days when we end up forgetting to count heads. This phenomenon reminds me of the phenomemon that physicists encounter when observing photons--the photons appear as waves when the physicists are looking for waves, and as particles when the physicists are looking for particles. When we are looking for hens, they are all there; when we are not looking for hens, they are not all there.) But I digress.

When I arrived at the henyard with a bucket of fresh water on Friday morning, and spotted the poor, lone lorn little hen huddled in a corner of the coolhouse, I knew we had a problem. Four years old is rather elderly for a laying hen, and for a couple of weeks, this little biddy had been sleeping on the floor of the henhouse rather than roosting with the other hens. Over the years we have witnessed enough natural deaths in the henyard to know that allowing an elderly hen to die a protracted natural death is terribly inhumane--the poor little things gasp and tremble, and may even start turning blue, and this suffering sometimes lasts more than a week. We have finally realized that the kind thing to do is to wring their little necks and put them out of their misery. One of these days we will get really brave and wring their little necks as soon as they reach the age of two and are no longer efficient egg layers, because hens that have died of natural causes are not safe to eat. But I digress again.

On Friday, my main concern was for our neighbor Diane, who takes care of our chickens when we are out of town. Diane is a registered nurse and a very dedicated animal lover who brings her own elderly goats into her house when they are breathing their last, so they can die in comfort. I didn't want to subject Diane to the trauma of having one of our hens die on her watch. Thus far we have avoided this calamity, but our old hens have an unfortunate tendency to fail right during our busy season, so quite a few of them have died either right before or right after Diane has cared for them. So after Walt came home from work and we loaded up the vehicle, my sweet hero had to go out to the henyard, gather up the poor old hen who hadn't moved an inch all day, and wring her scrawny little neck before we embarked for the Expo. After he got back in the driver's seat, Walt cupped an imaginary phone to his ear and said: "Diane, the hens learned that you were going to take care of them this weekend, so one of them dropped dead to celebrate." We both giggled uncontrollably for a while, and after we had finished, I left a message on Diane's machine, informing her that there were only eight hens to take care of, rather than nine.

I can't help wishing that when I reach the great Downhill Slide, and only misery and suffering lie ahead of me, someone could wring my scrawny little neck.

Butter and Eggs, Health Foods

2010-04-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote about the relationship between health and eating eggs and other high-cholesterol foods in “Green Barbarians,” because I never cease to be fascinated by how easy it is to convince people, especially people who should know better, that perfectly natural, harmless foods are unfit for human consumption. Despite the fact that there has never been a single study that proved that consuming eggs and butter was actually harming anyone at all, experts have been warning us for decades that butter and eggs are hazardous to our health and bad for our hearts.

The studies that demonstrated the dangers of cholesterol consumption were actually conducted in 1909 by Dr. A. Ignatowski, on rabbits! The astute Dr. Ignatowski fed his laboratory rabbits large amounts of meat, eggs, and milk, and this unnatural diet caused elderly rabbits to develop what looked very much like a rabbit version of atherosclerosis. When faced with the overwhelming evidence of the harm caused by feeding meat, eggs, and milk to a purely herbivorous mammal, what reasonable person wouldn’t conclude that eating these substances would also harm the health of humans, the most impressively omnivorous mammals on the planet? (Not all “experts” believed in the dangers of cholesterol, however. In 1977, when I was in college, a friend’s father, who was a cardiac researcher, very kindly informed me that eating cholesterol has absolutely no effect on serum cholesterol levels in human beings. I have been eating accordingly ever since.)

My husband and I have been gleefully snarfing down butter, eggs, and red meat for decades. I have always assumed that since human beings have been sucking eggs and eating meat for millennia, as did our pre-human ancestors, our digestive systems are probably more than capable of dealing with these substances.

Though many fairly recent epidemiological studies have shown that cholesterol consumption does not increase cholesterol levels in the blood stream, at last a study has been conducted which should put the final nail in the lid of the margarine tub: In 2008, Dr. Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which scrutinized 322 slightly obese volunteers for two years as they followed one of these three diets: a low-calorie Mediterranean style diet that was rich in vegetables and low on red meat; a low-fat, low-calorie diet based on American Heart Association guidelines; or a low-carbohydrate diet with no caloric restrictions.

Now while pondering these diets, one might well assume that the volunteers who were on the eat-as-much-as-you-want-of-everything-except-carbohydrates diet, might have gained a lot of weight compared to the volunteers who were on the low-calorie diets, but one’s assumptions would be wrong. Though the subjects who were on the low-carb diet ate more saturated fat than their counterparts on the other two diets, the low-carb dieters ended up with the healthiest ratio of HDL to LDL cholesterol, and they LOST TWICE AS MUCH WEIGHT as the subjects on the low-calorie diets!

A 1997 study conducted by Dr. Stampfer showed that overweight women who ate the largest amounts of easily-digested carbohydrates were 79 percent more likely to develop atherosclerosis than were their overweight peers who ate the smallest amounts of easily digested carbohydrates.

As Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children’s Hospital Boston said: “The next time you eat a piece of buttered toast, remember that the butter is actually the more healthful component.”

A Survivor Leafs Out

2010-04-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

Rasputin the crabapple is leafing out again. This may seem like an ordinary event in the life of a tree, but every spring I am thrilled to see it.

Rasputin is a Centennial crabapple that my husband and I planted nine years ago, during our first planting season in our country home. Centennials produce apples that are small but delicious, and we had high hopes for this little tree. Unfortunately, after its first winter in our garden, the tree was looking a bit peaked. With some trepidation, I unwound the spiral plastic tree wrap from the little trunk, and discovered that it had been completely girdled by a hungry varmint that had somehow squeezed beneath the wrap and eaten its way around the little sapling. A ring of bark three inches high had been neatly removed from the trunk several inches above ground level.

Under normal circumstances, girdling is fatal because sap cannot cross the bark-free area, so unless a bridging bit of bark is left to act as a conduit for the sap, the tree is doomed. However, there were several root sprouts coming up from the soil, and these sprouts were nearly long enough to span the damaged part of the trunk. I was not willing to give up yet, so I pulled each sprout up as close to the trunk as I could, removed a bit of the outermost layer of the young tender bark on the side closest to the tree’s trunk and used tiny finishing nails to attach the sprout to the trunk of the tree. Then I crossed my fingers.

As the days passed, the tree looked increasingly peaked, and most of its leaves wilted. Eventually, our elderly neighbor John, arrived in his geriatric truck with a load of composted manure for my garden. He stopped the truck and got out, then the truck began to roll backward, because he had forgotten to set the parking brake. Dmitri jumped into the cab and stopped the truck, but not before it had backed over the little tree, which emitted a heartrending crack! I shrugged. What difference did it make? The tree had been completely girdled by rodents. It was doomed anyway. Being run over couldn’t possibly make it any worse. The tree stood erect again after the truck was removed, but we were not hopeful.

Later in the summer, we had a new garage built. The old one had nearly collapsed on its own, and a new one was a necessity—we needed somewhere to store all our gardening equipment, and incidentally, an occasional vehicle. The dirt that was excavated for the slab was dumped in the area around the little crabapple tree, and ground level was now more than two feet higher than it had been. Normally, this would not be a preferred way to care for a tree, but what difference did it make? The tree was a goner anyway; it had already been girdled and run over. What difference could it possibly make if it was also partially buried?

The next spring, much to our amazement, the little tree leafed out. We watched it carefully, thinking that it was simply suffering a very prolonged death, but it didn’t die. In fact, the next spring, it leafed out again, and this was when we named it Rasputin, after the Russian monk who survived repeated assassination attempts. (The original Rasputin survived being poisoned (twice), shot, and stabbed repeatedly. He finally died only after he was dumped into the icy Neva River, where he drowned.)

But our Rasputin lives! He lives and he is our only apple tree that has produced apples, even though we planted several trees in that same year. In a few days Rasputin will burst into bloom. We are still waiting for our other apple trees to exhibit some gumption and some blossoms. And the next time we encounter a girdled tree, we will try the Rasputin treatment and bury the trunk to a level above the damaged area. We suspect that is what saved Rasputin: because so much of his trunk was buried, he was able to develop roots above the damaged area.

Sometimes it can be difficult to tell good luck from bad...

The Ethics of Watering a Lawn

2010-04-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Northern California, and developed many of my environmental morals during the terrible drought of the mid-1970s. By the time I went to the University of California at Santa Barbara, the notion of wasting water was anathema to me, and I was not alone. Tensions between drought-stricken, water-rationed Northern California, and carefree, water-wasting Southern California were very high. Southern California gets most of its water from Northern California, and the media were fanning the flames of North South animosity by regularly airing film footage of Los Angelenos watering their lawns, emptying and re-filling their swimming pools, and hosing down their sidewalks. All of this with our water! While we were scrunching across our dead lawns, keeping our trees alive with water saved from our baths, eating off of paper plates, and using jugs of saved water to flush our toilets once a day!

It didn't take long, in that fall of 1976, for the communal bathroom on the seventh floor of the U.C.S.B. dorm to become completely segregated: the toilets that the Northern Californians were using were flushed only when necessary and in accordance with the new Northern California mantra: "If it's yellow, it's mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." The Southern Californians' toilets were flushed at least once after every use. The Northern Californians took very short showers and turned off the water while soaping up. The Southern Californians discovered that if they stuffed towels in the drains and turned the hot water in all the showers on full blast, they could turn the whole bathroom into a sauna. Many of us were barely speaking to each other.

My deep feelings about the morality of watering lawns has not changed since then. HOWEVER, the video I just watched reminded me that there are some extenuating circumstances that justify running a sprinkler on a residential lawn. Most of those circumstances involve youngsters...

http://www.wimp.com/babymoose

Springtime Emptying-the-freezer Soup!

2010-04-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

Walt and I are gradually eating away at the stored food in our cupboards and freezer. It's the perfect time of year for this, since taxes are due, and on a happier note, we are anticipating the advent of our first spring vegetables. This is our version of spring cleaning, making room for a new season's worth of food from our garden. I don't do the other kind of spring cleaning--there's really no point in our household. Spring, after all, is mud season. Who wants to dance with the vacuum cleaner or mop when there are vegetable beds to be planted and a puppy who wants to play?

Yesterday morning, Walt pulled a large package of glass noodles out of the cupboard where it had been taking up space for years. I love glass noodles, but they were on the high shelf, and unless I stand on a stool or climb up on the counter, I can't see everything that's up there. Walt is so elevated that he can see everything on the top shelf just by standing on his own two feet. I married him for his height... Walt started reading the package and began to laugh. I immediately decided that I needed to use the noodles in some soup. This project would mesh perfectly with our master plan to free up space for this season's harvest.

I have transcribed some of the highlights of the glass noodle package, since my photography skills are not up to the task of taking a legible photo:
The front of the package states that it contains "POTATOES GLASS NOODLES," the brand is "Goldensmell," it's a product of China, and is distributed by "STRONG AMERICA LIMITED," in Flushing, New York. The back of the package states that it is best used before "TENMINSTE HOUDBAAR TOT EIND," (If anyone has any idea what this means, please let me know.)
"Ingredients: Potatoes torch, Water" It took me a while to figure out what "Potatoes torch" meant. Just read it out loud...

I did a fabulous job of freeing up space while making dinner: I emptied one of our valuable one-gallon freezer containers by using up a batch of chicken broth, used two zip-lock bags of last week's chicken bones, emptied a bag of sliced and sautéed pattypan squash that had been taking up space since 2008, and made a slight dent in the bag of glass noodles.

Here's the recipe. The soup was delicious! One of my very best.

One gallon chicken or turkey broth. (For this soup I combined the frozen broth I already had with the new broth I made by boiling last week's frozen bones for a couple of hours, then straining that broth through a colander into another stockpot. Note that broth made of already cooked and seasoned meat and bones will always have more flavor than will soup made from raw, unseasoned meat.)

One quart of frozen sliced and sauteed summer squash. (Freezing is a wonderful and easy way to preserve vegetables, if, like me, you are averse to slaving over a hot stove during canning season. Vegetables must be heated before they are frozen, in order to kill the enzymes that would otherwise ruin the flavor of the frozen vegetables. Sautéeing kills the enzymes just as surely as does the traditional blanching in boiling water, but preparing vegetables for freezing by slicing and then sautéeing them is a lot faster and easier than blanching, and you end up with more flavorful and nutritious vegetables.)

Two or three chopped onions.

A dozen cloves of minced or squeezed fresh garlic.

A handful of dried nettles.

A tablespoon of turmeric.

A tablespoon of crumbled dried edible seaweed.

A frozen cube of fresh basil with olive oil. (We always try to grow as much basil as possible, and ready it for freezing by mixing it with enough olive oil to dampen it, and then running it through a food processor. We pack the basil and oil into ice cube trays, put the trays in zip-lock bags, then freeze them. When the basil is frozen, we empty the frozen basil cubes into freezer containers, and store them in the freezer until they are needed for soup, pesto, or spaghetti sauce.)

A cup of glass noodles.

As you can see, this soup is designed for maximum nutritional value.

Cooking directions:

Put your stockpot on the stove.
Chop onions, put them in your stockpot.
Chop or squeeze your garlic, and set it aside for five minutes--this resting time will enhance its nutritional value.
Add the frozen summer squash to the pot.
Pour a gallon of chicken or turkey broth into your stockpot, turn the heat on medium under the pot.
Add the dried nettles, the tablespoon of turmeric, and the tablespoon of crumbled seaweed.
Bring the soup to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. Add the glass noodles and the basil cube. Let it cook for fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are done.

Commemorating the 25th anniversary of our family's cloth diapers

2010-04-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

This morning, Walt and I were pondering the impressive longevity of the cloth diapers we bought a quarter century ago, when we were expecting our first child. We purchased 80 triple-fold cloth diapers, which were a rather large investment for us at the time. We used those diapers for 3 years and 3 months on our son, who was not at all interested in potty training until after the new baby came. After a couple of months of observation, Dmitri noted that "If Addie is a baby, I'm not a baby, and I don't need diapers," and that was that. At 20 months of age, Addie potty-trained herself with absolutely no help from me--she would go upstairs and wrestle her diaper off by herself, and then come back down, announce that she had peed in the potty, and that she had earned her gummy bear. She was right, she had.

But I digress. This morning Walt and I reckoned that each of our family diapers had been washed at least 250 times while in service for its intended use, and that in their more than two decades of service as rags since then, they had probably each been washed at least another 350 times. I just looked up the prices for disposable diapers online. For $42.99, one can diaper the following sizes of infants: a 12-18 pounder, 252 times; a 16 to 28 pounder, 200 times; a 22-37 pounder, 176 times (Note: my daughter weighed 39 pounds when she entered kindergarten, and she was definitely NOT wearing diapers! See above); 27 pounds and up, 156 times.

We went through 10 or more diapers per day, per child, because newborns excrete constantly, and larger children, who may be using the potty some of the time, usually need to be double-diapered with cloth diapers. So, each child used at least 3,650 diapers per year. This would be more than 18 boxes of the medium-sized disposable diapers, the kind one would use for one and two year olds. 18 x $42.99 = $773.82

When we had our kids, if we had bought organic diapers (which didn't exist) on Amazon.com (which also didn't exist) we would have needed to buy thirteen 6-packs of those diapers (organic is always much more expensive than non-organic, mind you). Six organic diapers sell for $9.99. And 13 x $9.99 = $129.87 Less expensive 12 packs of non-organic cotton diapers sell on Amazon for $10.99, and we would have needed 7 packs of those. So, 7 x $10.99 = $76.93

We diapered baby bottoms for 5 straight years with those 80 diapers. And as Walt noted this morning, even if one used them merely as rags, these things are so durable that they're an incredible value for the money. And for those who might be laboring under the apprehension that laundering a year's worth of diapers might eat up the savings, here's a rather reassuring thought: I just saw an advertisement for a front-loading washing machine that can wash 44 X-large t-shirts at once. An extra-large t-shirt contains much more than twice as much material as a diaper, in fact, even a large t-shirt contains more than twice as much material as a diaper (I know this because I just removed my size L t-shirt, rolled it up tightly, and then rolled up one of our old diapers. The t-shirt was way, way bigger.) So one could easily do an entire week's worth of diapers in a single load in one of these machines, and I'm pretty sure that washing and drying a single load of laundry, no matter how high the energy prices in your area, is not going to cost you the difference between a year's worth of disposables and buying a baby's worth of cloth diapers: $773.82 - $129.87 = $643.96 $643 -:- 52 weeks = $12.38 per week

Here's a photo of one of our venerable diapers:

The Perils of Penny-pinching

2010-04-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Quite a few months ago, my friend Ann lent me a couple of books, one a book of the collected poems of the great modern Greek poet, C.P. Cavafy, and the other, “Into the Heart of Borneo,” by Redmond O’Hanlon. I read about halfway through the Cavafy, enjoying it most of the way, and then quit when the poems began to seem to repeat themselves. (I guess I’m not much of a poetry afficionado. My tastes run very strongly toward Robert Frost, the Greek Anthology, and not much else. And I am capable of writing doggerel, and not much else.)

This morning, Walt was glaring at the bookshelf next to my side of the bed, trying to figure out which books were ours, and which needed to be returned to their owners, when he spotted the two aforementioned books. I suddenly remembered that there was a very important section in the Borneo book that I wanted to reread. Since I hadn’t marked the place, I was afraid it might be difficult to find the right spot without rereading the book. Luckily I did find it, and very near the end of the book too, right where I tend to go when I don’t want to finish reading a book that bores me, or I want to skim one that I don’t want to completely reread!

So this is the very important section of this book, which was published in 1984, about O’Hanlon’s travels in Borneo a year or two earlier:

O’Hanlon and his guides are in the village of Kapit, on the river Rajang, in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, which is part of Malaysia. After a drinking party, the local schoolmaster came up to O’Hanlon, who was very drunk by that point, and addressed him:

“Good evening, “ he said, in excellent English, “have you come to take the air?”

“Yes, I suppose I have,” I said, gasping it in.

He found my hand and shook it.

“How do you do? I’m what you might call the village schoolmaster.”

“You teach over there?” I said stupidly, pointing into the dark at the opposite bank,

“in the school?”

“That’s right,” he said, kindly, “but I sleep here in the longhouse. I’m a Kayan. I

trained in Kuching, but after college we all have to teach for a year up-country. I think it’s

a good plan, don’t you? Did you train anywhere?”

“Yes, I trained in Oxford.”

The schoolmaster turned round, leaned against the rail beside me, and stared into

the tropical night.

“I would have loved to go to Oxford,” he said, with passion. “For me, it would be

the celestial city. And, just think, my friend, two or three years ago, a mere two or three

years ago, I might have had the chance. I’d have worked at my studies, all day long. And

I might have passed out top and won a scholarship. But now England has no money and

Mrs. Thatcher cannot afford us. Our government was angry, my friend, very angry, when

she said no more of us could go to your universities. You tell her—it was not wise. In time,

we will forget your country. Soon, no English will be taught in our schools. Only Bahasa.

The whole of Malaysia will become Muslim. Already, to spite you, our government buys

its cars, its police vehicles, its ships, from Japan—and now we are to let them build a

dam here.”

“I am sorry, “ I said, “but we are not rich any more.”

“No, my friend, it’s not riches, it’s an attitude. You decided to have no more to do

with us. What’s a scholarship here and there? And yet it kept all our young teachers happy,

the thought of it.”

Page 166, Redmond O’Hanlon,“Into the Heart of Borneo,"

Vintage Books, a division of Random House, N.Y. 1984

So, my friends, there you have it, the beginning of the Islamification of Indonesia, accurately predicted by a local schoolmaster in the wilds of Borneo in the early 1980s!

Applied primatology: Behavioral Economics, Dan Ariely

2010-04-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

I've been on a real binge of watching TED videos, and yesterday I watched one of Dan Ariely, who is a behavioral economist (in fact, I think he invented the field). I read several papers of his while researching "Green Barbarians." Ariely is the researcher who figured out that if you give people two choices of a commodity such as a magazine, or two choices of "Which of these photos of young men is more attractive?" they choose whichever option they prefer, but if you give them three choices, one of which is really terrible, and not really an option, they tend to choose the viable option that is the most similar to the really messed up option. In one study, he had fliers made up, based on a real one he got from The Economist Magazine, which advertised the following options :

"Subscribe to a full year of online access to The Economist for $59.

Subscribe to a full year of the print edition of The Economist in print for $125.

Subscribe to a full year of both the online print editions of The Economist for $125.

Dr. Ariely contacted Scientific Magazine after he received this flyer, and told them they'd made a mistake. They subsequently withdrew the offer, because they had indeed made a mistake. However, he used their mistake as the basis of an experiment:

Dr. Ariely gave a flier containing The Economist's original subscription options to 100 of his economics students at MIT, and asked them to choose an option. After studying the options carefully, 16 students chose the Internet-only option; zero students chose the print-only option and 84 students chose the combo. Then Dr. Ariely gave 100 more of his students the option to subscribe to The Economist, but this time he removed the print-only option--these students had only two options: subscribe to The Economist online, or subscribe online and in print. This time, 68 students chose to subscribe online, while 32 students chose the combo. Ariely concluded that students in the first group had been convinced that the combo offered the best value for the money, because it looked so attractive compared to the print-only option for the same price, while the students in the second group, who were not distracted by the really poor value of the middle option, chose what they really preferred.

So, with the distracting bad option, 16 percent of students chose the online subscription, and 84 percent chose the combo. Without the distracting bad option, 68 percent of the students chose the online subscription, while 32 percent chose the combo.

The other experiment that Dr. Ariely conducted was to ask subjects about the relative attractiveness of photographs of young men. The first set of subjects were shown two photographs, one of a blond, somewhat babyfaced young man, who was obviously computer generated, and the other of a dark-haired young man, who was also obviously computer generated. The subjects were then asked which young man was more attractive. The next group of volunteers was shown the same photographs, along with a computer-generated image of one of the young men that had been altered to look a bit deformed. These volunteers were far more likely to say that the most attractive photo was the one that looked the most similar to the computer-deranged version. In other words, if the blond man's image was deranged, most people said that the image of the normal-looking blond man was the most attractive. If the brunette man's image was deranged, the subjects were more likely to say that the image of the normal-looking brunette man was the most attractive. So much for free-will!

Dr. Ariely's research seems to me to be a particularly fascinating branch of primatology. I've put a hold on his book, "Predictably Irrational," at the library. I can't wait to read it!

Hands-on, Flighty Conservatives, and advice from Temple Grandin

2010-04-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

I've just finished reading Temple Grandin's "Animals Make Us Human." Her take on human behavior is fascinating and incredibly valuable, because human behavior does not come naturally to her. She has been teaching design classes to college students for many years, and has noticed some profound changes in their proficiency:
   "I have been teaching my livestock-handling-facility design class for eighteen years. Since around 2000, the percentage of students having difficulty with the drawings has increased. I think this is due to lack of hands-on experience with drawing in grade school. Last semester I told my students to buy a compass to draw circles with. One girl came up to me after class and said, "Dr. Grandin, I bough a compass and I'm having trouble with my homework." She couldn't figure out how to draw different sizes of circles. When I looked at what she was doing, I found out she had bought a Boy Scout compass and was tracing a ircle around its circumference. It's not just students, either. I review drawings from plants around the world and I find the same errors in plans done by draftsmen. Older draftsmen who learned to draw by hand and then switched to the computer do fine. But younger ones who learned to make scale drawings on the computer make basic mistakes like not knowing where the center of a circle is." (Page 23, "Animals Make Us Human.")

I cannot help wondering how these students, who Grandin believes are making mistakes simply because they have never built anything with their own hands in the real world, can possibly deal with designing for animals? Animals are purely physical beings. How can anyone who lives a mostly virtual existence have a hope of designing anything that works for purely physical beings?

Later in the book, Ms. Grandin writes about dealing with wild animals in zoos. The large herbivores, such as antelopes, are particularly difficult to deal with, because they panic very easily, and sometimes end up killing themselves by smacking into fences or other obstacles when they panic. She writes about habituating these animals to new stimuli, so they don't panic and commit accidental suicide:
   "...you have to be careful not to force new things on animals (or on people). Animals like novelty if they can choose to investigate it; they fear novelty if you shove it in their faces. That's why the antelopes were so terrified of the yellow electrical sign, because they were being forced to walk past it. If the keepers had left them along, the antelopes would have gone up to the sign and sniffed it.
   The difference between forced and unforced novelty might also explain why animals get upset by tiny changes in their environments. Tiny changes are one kind of novelty. I wonder, if I went back and looked at all the times I've seen animals be terrified of a tiny detail, whether the problem was that someone was trying to force them to approach or tolerate that new detail before they'd had a chance to explore it of their own free will." (Page 287-288, "Animals Make Us Human.")

If one substitutes the word "Conservatives" for the word "animals" in the preceding two paragraphs, one may get some inkling of why conservatives have gone ballistic lately, over issues, the Health Care Bill, for example, which seem to be unquestionably a good thing for anyone who is not a grossly-overpaid insurance executive.

Perhaps those of us who do not panic over every single change in our lives have been approaching this stuff the wrong way. Maybe we are the ones whose brains work like the brains of large predatory mammals--we don't panic over small changes and rather enjoy novelty. Perhaps the conservative brain is actually wired like that of a prey animal: flighty, terrified of novelty, and desperate to prevent change, any kind of change.

I wish I had some insight into how we might deal with this problem collectively, but I don't, other than to wonder whether perhaps Temple Grandin ought to be invited to the White House for a brainstorming session?

Mass Media sponsors and advertisers

2010-03-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another interesting Green Barbarian day. I was interviewed in the morning by a Satellite Radio dj, who kept trying to score humor points by asking me whether I was a hippie, and wouldn't allow me enough time to actually answer any of his questions adequately. Then, in the afternoon, a young writer who interviewed me a month ago, and has been working on a newspaper article about nontoxic housecleaning, contacted me because her editor was balking at the statement that some cleaning products contain carcinogens. It's no wonder it's so difficult to get things to move away from toxins when so much of the media is worried about not annoying their corporate sponsors.

A Rant about Lysol liquid soap

2010-03-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw a television ad for "Lysol" brand liquid handsoap, which featured an animated "closeup" of the "germs" living on the pump button of a bottle of liquid soap. The argument was that because germs live on the button, they constitute a danger which can be ameliorated by buying the Lysol brand "hands-free" liquid soap dispenser.

For GOD'S SAKE! How wimpy and nervous can we get??? It's a bottle of soap! You pump out soap and then wash your hands, thus removing transitory bacteria from your hands. And how gullible can we get? Doesn't anyone understand the one-way arrow of time? If we get our hands dirty and then wash them, they're clean.

Sometimes I worry that our country could be conquered by a bunch of daredevils who spit on their hands and then offered to shake hands with us. We'd all run away screaming, terrified of the "germs." How can we possibly hope to survive any kind of national emergency if we can't even survive the "germs" on our own soap?

A Green Barbarian's letter to the editor

2010-02-16T10:24:00.000-08:00

Subject: Good morning from Kelly Thornton

Here is the letter I submitted to the editor of the state journal register in Springfield, Illinois.

I would encourage readers to take the recently placed, oversized, Monsanto ads with a grain of salt, but there really isn't enough salt on the planet to be okay with this company. Monsanto is without a doubt one of the most diabolical corporations to exist. Their bottom line is making LOTS of money without the simplest regard for the health of humans, animals, or the environment. It's a shame that the SJR is even running Monsanto's ads, but I'm sure that money is too hard to resist. Their ad plays on your sympathy while trying to convince you that they're such an asset to the world, their website would have you believe that they are environmentally friendly. I would encourage readers to watch MANY of the documentaries out there which show the true side of Monsanto such as "The Corporation" and "Food, Inc." There are also many books on the subject. Do some research. Judge for yourself. Perhaps people will wake up eventually and start rallying against the abuses of these large corps. If you wondering why I didn't list any of Monsanto's (what should be illegal) practices, these letters cannot exceed 300 words and honestly, Monsanto's offenses are too many to list in such a short essay. Watch the movies, check the sources. You'll see that the abomination known as genetically modified food is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Go green, go organic, and fight these overgrown bully corporations to the bitter end. (Monsanto isn't alone , Syngenta and ADM are not quite as bad but not good either)
--------------------

A phonecall from the voice of experience

2010-01-29T07:53:00.003-08:00

I got a phonecall the other day, from a woman up the North Shore who wanted a copy of Green Barbarians, but doesn't drive, and doesn't own a computer. She was really excited about the book after reading the wonderful article by Jana Peterson in the Duluth News Tribune. This woman had raised 7 children, dairy cows, beef cattle, chickens, pigs, and a truck garden on a 180 acre farm. She also mixed, raised, and baked 48 loaves of bread each week! Just hearing about it exhausted me! WOW!

Green Barbarians article

2010-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

This article was written by Jana Peterson, and published in the Duluth News Tribune on January 22, 2010

Ellen Sandbeck, author of “Green Barbarians: How to Live Bravely on Your Home Planet,” removes the bacteria and fungi culture from her homemade kefir Thursday evening at her home in Fredenberg Township. (Clint Austin / caustin@duluthnews.com)

As Duluth author Ellen Sandbeck lifts the gelatinous blob of bacteria and yeasts that is a kefir culture out of the jar, she extols the benefits of drinking the fermented milk product.
“The nice thing about kefir is that the bacteria actually colonize your gut, whereas the bacteria in yogurt won’t,” she said.
The homemade kefir is somehow sour and sweet at the same time. And, once you decide not to notice the tiny lumps as they make their way past your teeth down your throat, it’s actually pretty tasty — in a slightly fizzy, plain yogurt sort of way.
What Sandbeck doesn’t say in person, but describes in detail in her latest book, is that she also conducted her own experiment using kefir — along with dog spit added when she let her dogs lick the mixture off her foot — on a stubborn toenail fungus she had battled for almost 25 years.
“Despite my lackadaisically intermittent kefir treatments, my toenails seem to be growing out fungus-free. … Since both canine saliva and kefir have been reported to have antifungal properties, if my toenails grow out fungus-free, there may be some question as to which liquid did the trick, the saliva or the kefir,” she writes in “Green Barbarians: How to Live Bravely on your Home Planet.”
“Barbarian,” as Sandbeck and the ancient Greeks define it, simply means “one who is not of the dominant culture, who was therefore considered strange or bizarre.”
By that definition, Sandbeck certainly is a barbarian. She is a worm wrangler — a master of worm composting who learned from experience — and keeps a coop of about 10 laying hens. She cleans her kitchen with vinegar and hydrogen peroxide and disapproves of hand sanitizer and long fingernails. She doesn’t believe sound bites and she avoids Wikipedia, instead preferring to glean her information from government and educational Web sites, as well as magazines such as Popular Science.
Sandbeck revels in the healthfulness of dirt, and in digging into the truth about the way we live today. She prefers her life like her kefir: tasty, adventurous and packed with healthy bacteria. Throw in a couple of affectionate dogs, and what could be better?
Her book is filled with personal observations — from the previously mentioned foot fungus to the useful “stretching a chicken” food section — woven in with explanations of recent scientific studies on everything from intestinal diseases to cosmetic ingredients to the kitchen sponge.
“I think the real message of ‘Green Barbarians’ is that people should think for themselves and not just swallow ‘information’ whole, no matter where it is coming from,” she said.
Sandbeck sums up her hopes for readers in the book’s preface: “Our home planet is, after all, planet Earth, not planet Just-cleaned-deodorized-disinfected-shined-bleached-and-polished,” Sandbeck writes. “Life here can be a bit scary. It is frequently dirty, grimy and gritty, and it is — and always has been — bacteria-laden. These are not sufficient reasons for letting the advertisers scare us into emptying our pockets and poisoning ourselves.
“Use what you have at hand in new and innovative ways. Take stock of what you have in abundance. Frustrate and thwart the powers that be. Use your mind, hands and heart to make a better life for yourself and those you love.”

Green Barbarian party! PARTY!

2010-01-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

If you can read this post, and are within reasonable driving distance, you should come to the book launch/costume party tomorrow evening, January 22, 2010, at the Spiritual Deli, 3 West Superior St. from 6-10 pm. Prizes will be awarded for the best Green Barbarian costumes (very, very cool prizes). Eat kimchi! Drink kefir beer! Slurp delectable homemade caramel and chocolates!

If you are involved with a small, environmentally friendly business, wear your advertising on your sleeve, your pantleg, your shirt, or your hat. Wear a sandwich board if you like. Networking encouraged!

Winning entry from Pedro Albequerque

2010-01-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Morte do Náufrago Amor

Como sol que teima em
queimar
Dentro da minha
escuridão,
Que ilumina o meu
coração,
Em cinzas a me
transformar.

E náufrago em mar
revolto,
Que enfrenta batalha
insana.
Tenta manter-se à tona!
Busca respirar afoito…

Pois amar sem ser amado
É Ícaro o sol a tocar,
Que desce mortalmente ao
mar-
Cego, pois apaixonado.

É amor que, quando é
findo,
Em buraco negro implode
Com força que tudo pode-
Em novo amor ressurgindo.

Pedro Albequerque

Welcome to my new blog!

2010-01-18T16:38:00.000-08:00

More to come soon! My new book Green Barbarians is available NOW on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Barbarians-Live-Bravely-Planet/dp/1416571825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263861252&sr=1-1