Category Archives: creativity

DIY Solar Power **edited

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I have the bah humbugs for the New Year…can’t get too worked up over the new year–too many times hopes have been dashed…

So…I thought I’d go looking for something to lift my mood...here’s a neat thing–do it yourself solar panels.  I think even if someone only wanted to do one panel, it would still help reduce their electric bill, and that would reduce the country’s needs for energy produced by oil or other environmentally toxic stuff, like fracking.  Note that the author recommends a professional installation, or having a professional inspect your work if you do it yourself.

Eartheasy also has a page on energy efficient lighting, with LED lights.  I was happy they did not have the dreaded mercury-filled lightbulbs.

Enjoy.

**edited to add:  As I read the comments, the author mentions they have a small generator when the sun is not available.  It flashed in my head that with the stupid chemtrails creating a solid mass of “clouds” it could also interfere with available sunlight for the solar panels.

African Soul Fried Rice

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Michael Twitty has done it again with this blog on African Soul Fried Rice.  Sounds delicious.

I like the fermented aspect of the food.  I wondered if he means the bean from the locust tree…so I went looking and found this.

It’s considered medicinal, too….gotta wonder how much wisdom has been lost about our ancient remedies.  Thanks, modern medicine, for a bang up job of ignoring past wisdom. /snarky, for sure.

The locust beans are seen as a nuisance here…as is the dandelion.  We’ll discover, when it’s too late, that the things we thought were nuisances were healing plants to cure cancer, diabetes, etc.

Michael Twitty also has a blog up on some badass rice growers.  Yes, badass rice growers.  I *love* that they are bucking the system, the status quo of  Big Ag and getting the cold shoulder for it.  They are raising rice crops in unconventional ways that thwart the Ag profiteers who want to sell chemicals and bioengineered rice.  Heh.

On top of that, the way that they are raising it lowers the arsenic level in rice–very important to lower our exposure to heavy metals.

From the Washington Post article:

Thomet has unwittingly aligned himself with a small group of experimental U.S. farmers and hobbyists, probably no more than 50, who are breaking with a tradition that dates to colonial America. They’re rejecting paddy rice in favor of an increasingly accepted agricultural system that promises to increase crop yields while decreasing water use, chemical dependency and even the amount of arsenic in our grains.

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See, it bothers the status quo when you don’t play along with the technology-is-king mentality.  Using one’s brain is not allowed. :p

 

Larry Lujack

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Those of you not from the Midwest won’t get this post, but an icon of the 70s has passed–Larry Lujack who dominated the radio during the 70s, has passed.   We lived three hours away from Chicago, but the powerful WLS reached our little town and much of northern Indiana. (There is a great youtube of Lujack broadcasting in May 1971.  I don’t think it’s “official” , though, so I can’t link to it.  But just listening to it is a great toss back to those days–the fun we had (describing oil cans as “beautiful” *snort* ) and the times–Vietnam updates /protestors are featured on the news and I’m not sure, but I think they are announcing officers being investigated for shooting Vietnamese, but I’m not sure if it’s related to the My Lai massacre.)

We loved listening to Lujack on our school bus as we made the trip into school, laughing at programs like the “Tooth Fairy”…complete with background noise like doors opening/closing, footsteps, and all that made radio great.  I feel sorry for my kids’ generation, because they never got to experience that part of our culture.

I had the name “boogiecheck” for awhile as a log on name.  People thought it was something dirty–it wasn’t.  It was in reference to a program on WLS with John Records Landecker, where he made short bits of callers’ conversations into a hilarious soundbyte.   The program was so popular that when Landecker went to a local high school to speak at a convocation, he was greeted with the crowd chanting:  “Boogie Check, Boogie Check, ooh aah!  Boogie Check, Boogie Check, ooh aah!”   This was the intro to the program from that moment on.

Landecker once told a story of one Friday, a payday, in the olden days where they actually handed out paper checks that one took to the bank to deposit.  He said he picked up his check, and started to walk towards the bank, and with each step, he felt more tired.  His arm hurt.  By the time he got to the bank, he could barely put one foot in front of another.  When he got to the bank teller, he found the reason why:  he was carrying Larry Lujack’s paycheck instead of his own.  Haha.  Must have been soooome big ole’ paycheck. 🙂

Peace and comfort to Larry’s family on his passing…

The feminine of culture

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I found this piece so interesting.  It perfectly illustrates how much the so-called feminine crafts impacted...created.…cultures.  Would we not all look alike but for our unique sense of style, color, texture in our cultures?  Sooooo boring…

Without the warmth of blankets and solid clothing, wouldn’t we have perished long ago?

…and the creativity of the feminine…is awesome….

And yet, the feminine is still treated–historically as well as today–as if it was not that important for survival…even by women who claim to be pro-woman.

If women had not had the ingenuity to gather nuts, berries, and seeds to eat, would humanity survived? (likely not–men weren’t that good at hunting before tools came along).  How about their intuition in cooking…?

What about their intuition for using plants for medicine?  And yet we have been dumbed down to not trust our instincts that were once keen….

Medical professionals will intimidate a women into dismissing what she knows to be true…because….well, because he’s the doctor and he’s had all these years of schooling and he has that certificate on the wall saying that he is smarter than she…

Beethoven

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A mini progress report–

I used to play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy regularly on the piano when young.  It was about the only classic that my poor mother could get me to play.  She wanted me to play the classics, but I wanted to play rock n’ roll. :p  So…yeah…never practiced.

I did like “Ode to Joy” , however, and played it well.

Well…something told me to try again to play it–no music, mind you–from memory.  I didn’t think I could because I always had music in front of me to play.

But the urge was strong, so I went to the keyboard…and the music began to flow.  I still can’t believe it.  Let the tears flow…

I’m not able to do the accompaniment yet with the left hand…but I have more confidence now that it will come back.

I’m still waiting for the day that “Classical Gas”  comes back.  I’ll be bawling then.

 

Cheap Real Estate – your local school **edited

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Jan Ressenger has this disturbing link to a Philly.com article on investors buying school building cheaply.  She also has this link to a Valerie Strauss report in the Washington Post.

Strauss reprinted a report by Helen Gym:

For more than 10 months, Parents United for Public Education and our lawyers at the Public Interest Law Center of  Philadelphia have been fighting to make public the Boston Consulting Group’s list of 60 schools recommended for closure and the criteria it used for developing the list. In 2012, BCG contracted with the William Penn Foundation to provide “contract deliverables,” one of which was identifying 60 public schools for closure. William Penn Foundation solicited donations for this contract, including some from real estate developers and those promoting charter expansion. The “BCG list” was referred to by former Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen in public statements. But District officials refused to release the list, saying that it was an internal document and therefore protected from public review.

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Does anybody else smell ALEC involvement?  I mean, the playbook of hiding what should be public information is sooo ALEC.

Gym makes the point that these records, although termed “internal” are shared with philanthropic organizations and stakeholders.  I would like a definition of stakeholder—because from where I sit, the public IS a stakeholder.

And she is right on with the query: is Right to Know now Pay to Know?

**edited to correct attribution. Oops.

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Diane Ravitch has a link up to this excellent article by DSWright.  Notice how Duncan ignores the racist remark and patronizes people once again by dismissing it as just awkward delivery of the message.  He again lies about how our kids are doing in schools–they are not failing, No Child Left a Mind and Race to the Bottom are failing!!  Common Core is an outrageous legalized plan of child abuse that requires kids to answer questions that are above their psychological development.

Duncan also slips into the conversation how “partnering” with corporations is being promoted.  The lines are being blurred between public and private sectors.

Nowhere in Duncan’s speech does he talk of better educated kids for well-rounded citizens to sustain a democracy.  The promotion of the corporate octopus into public education will use schools as their personal training centers (more than they already are)—NOT for democracy.  Well educated people ask too many questions.  They know too much to take whatever is dished out.

Brother, can you spare a dime?

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Because young, hopeful, eager teachers need any spare change you can give…. (hat tip to Diane Ravitch).

I wish I could say this is just happening to the teaching profession, but alas…it’s been going on in the private sector, as well, for, oh, at least seven years.  It was just understood that you didn’t take breaks.  What? You need a lunch?  Well, okay, but be quick about it.  What?  You need a bathroom break?  Well, okay, but you’ll have to clean it, too, while you’re in there….

Yep.  It’s the dirty little secret nobody talks about.  (The above was reference to a store owned by people professing to be progressive Dems, too. Um-hmm..)

Yes, the teaching profession was insulated from this for awhile, but alas, it too, has been sucked into the black hole that was once this magnificent country….bankrupted by bankers who produce nothing and corporate CEO’s who actually think they’re worth the millions paid to them.

I was trying to think of a profession this hasn’t hit–the medical profession and the lawyers, the bankers, and, of course, Congress, who never seem to have to pay their dues with the rest of us; are the only ones I could think of.

Bank tellers, however, have been impacted, along with others. 

So…I went looking again for stuff made in the United States of America…in fear that perhaps nothing is made here anymore…only slightly cynical…

I found this very cool fabric manufacturer.  I soooo want to buy that fabric!

And this.  (Note the theme of organically grown crop)

Here’s one for fleece.

And one for wool.

Another organic cotton manufacturer.  Man, my mood has lightened up considerably. 🙂

More here.

Finally, for my newer readers, this website is terrific for finding stuff (Christmas gifts?) still made here.  Enjoy.

 

Earthships Africa

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Michael Reynolds reports that the earthships flower in Malawi is complete, and now they are moving forward towards a community center.

NEW DONATION GOAL FOR MALAWI PROJECT: $60,000
For materials needed for the local people to continue building the Kapita Earthship Community Center after the EB crew and volunteers leave on October 20th.

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I’m so glad that they were able to realize their goal and help these folks in a sustainable fashion.  Yay!

Here’s to helping one another instead of, you know, torturing and killing….