Rochester CSA

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The Rochester, New York CSA has put up a promo video on youtube:

I could have given them a couple of tips on a better sound quality and when asking someone to speak, make sure they’re comfortable in front of a camera.

All in all, though, I thought this was a pretty good piece on explaining about community supported agriculture.    It would be great to have them close enough that one could bike over to either put in their hours of work, or on market day to bring groceries home.  I like the idea of rickshaws, as was previously posted about.  There are three-wheeled bikes out there with a big basket but they’re cumbersome to ride–slow as molasses.  I don’t know if the rickshaws would be any different?  Hmmm…

Here’s another video I thought was interesting–some folks use worms in containers instead of having compost piles.  So I presume this is what this guy is doing although he doesn’t really come out and say it:

 

 

I like these two guys below. Folksy.  They do a better job of explaining what they’re doing and why:

 

 

When they talk of cured horse manure, I’m assuming that they’re waiting a year before using it.  I think a year minimum is the standard that they like to let manure cure, so any bad organisms have met their demise by this time.

 

Boehner lies and investments in Tar Sands companies

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(hat tip to fatster at FDL)

John Boehner, while constantly saying “The American people want, need, demand…” while ignoring what the American people want, need, and demand….has promoted the XL pipeline…while investing in the companies tied to it.

I’m just shocked, shocked, I tell you, that a politician who stands to benefit financially from legislation is…promoting that legislation. /snark

Where have all the good ones gone that did what was right for the country and not for their bank accounts…?

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Also from fatster~~

Related to this is a heartwarming story of a small group of folks protesting the Enbridge pipeline….unfortunately, they’re from Michigan…that will be the day when Hoosiers start protesting Enbridge…

I can’t believe they were charged with felonies.  Seriously?  Like a commenter said on the website, we should be concerned about the crackdown on public assemblies….you know, that First Amendment thingy?

From the comments:

Russell Frege

Enbridge is being disingenuous. No one has come to harm from these non-violent protests. On the other hand, from the Athabasca Chippewa cancer rates to the impacts of climate change, many will be harmed if the tar sands industry achieves its goal of tripling production by 2030. Just imagine Bangladesh flooded by rising sees. That’s millions of refugees in that region alone. We should be working to stop changing the climate. We should have global peak emissions by 2020 then steadily decline. Tripling tar sands production is inconsistent with that goal. These protesters are the modern equivalent of Rosa Parks, who incidentally was hated by conservatives also. As FDR said “I welcome their hatred.” It’s a sign you’re doing something right. Go M-CATS.

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I have to admit a chuckle at the enthusiastic guy commenting on how beautiful state Michigan is…which it is…but then the conservative joker does have a point about him never being in poor Detroit, the dumping ground of the Kochs and anyone else who feels like it.  But let’s say that MOST of Michigan is quite beautiful… NOT the parts that conservatives and DINO’s (Democrats in Name Only) have polluted.

It’s always interesting to me that these polluters will trash one area, and then move to a non-polluted area.  It should be a rule somewhere that if you pollute an area, you must live in that area for the rest of your life…

…not only that, but your children and grandchildren must live in that area, too.   Seems fair, eh?

The Role of Food in American Slavery

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I just love this stuff–it gives so much more of history than just names, places, and dates.  The visual and cultural really brings it alive.  I wish Michael Twitty had brought up a little more in the historical aspect of the recipes and cooking methods.  

I am always fascinated at how wise they were back in the day…the women gathered the nuts, berries, and plants to eat…how did they know which were poisonous and which weren’t?  How did they remember one plant from another?  And the ability to put spices together is truly a gift.   

 

On the Edumucation Front…

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Well, folks, the Bush family just keeps on giving and giving….

…what exactly they’re giving (perhaps the word is *taking*)  is open to debate…

Diane Ravitch has a blog up on the Jeb Bush Miracle .  *cough*

Florida school grades released today are “worse than useless measures of educational quality,” according to a local expert on assessment. Bob Schaeffer, Pubic Education Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), explained, “Based largely on scores from the low quality FCAT exam, state officials change the grading formula each year to serve their political agendas.”

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National Center for Fair and Open Testing

Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
cell (239) 699-0468

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And more here on those Lazy Teachers.  Really?  And how many hours have you spent in a classroom?  Or with your own children reading to them or playing with them or asking them about the lessons they learned in school that day….?  Methinks thou art a phony…

The Predator **edited

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Thomas at Yes Means Yes! has a blog up on the criminal activity of Anthony Weiner that is not being prosecuted.  As someone says in the comments (on Melissa McEwen’s blog)–if Weiner had exposed himself to someone on the subway, he would be charged with a crime.  And this happened after his first mea culpa–after begging forgiveness and of course, people wanting to give him a second chance…

…but this is Anthony Weiner, I’m-special-because-I’m-a-politician who has a likable personality….so he will skate by the city jail.

Granted, it is hard for women to confront someone whom has crossed boundaries….we aren’t raised that way.  And, the point was raised that someone in a position of power, be it political or business, can make serious trouble for a woman who stands up for herself.

**edited to correct ADD moment of attributing quote to Lisa Weiss that was the teacher Nobles.  Sorry.  Chelating…so ADD is worse…

Don’t like the NSA? How About Gates snooping into children’s school records?

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Diane Ravitch has this and this up on the continued invasion of privacy…only this time, it’s your kid they are gathering information on.  This critical information gathered by a Foundation that now owns 500,000 shares of Monsanto, .

…and what about Rupert Murdoch getting hold of your family’s records? Especially since the newspaper he owned invaded people’s privacy already…even after a warning about his dealings went unheeded.  

From the first Guardian article:

When the high court last summer ordered the News of the World to pay damages to Max Mosley for secretly filming him with prostitutes, the paper was furious. In an angry leader column, it insisted that public figures must maintain standards. “It is not for the powerful and the influential to run to the courts to gag newspapers from publishing stories that are TRUE,” it said. “This is all about the public’s right to know.”

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Does anyone else see the irony of a paper that is invading innocent people’s privacy complaining about maintaining standards….apparently lying and invasion of privacy are not standards someone should uphold…?

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The Uniparty

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One of the commenters here called the absence of real oppositional parties the “Uniparty”. …yep.

See…the Dems really believe in the Fourth Amendment and the rights of the American public to be let alone…

bwhahahahaha *snort*  bwahahahaha…

Don’t blame me.  I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000.  The first time in all the years that I had been voting that I wrote a candidate’s name on the ballet.  Of course, now Indiana has changed to the computerized system so a voter wouldn’t be able to just write in a candidate.   Supposedly, they have paper ballots at each voting station, but this voter was not told there were paper ballots available, not even when I voted early, nor were there any paper ballots visible so that one could ask for it.

They changed the law so that one had to have 2% of the general votes cast for the Secretary of State in the previous election.  Note the deadlines were repeatedly pushed back in order to diminish the ability to gather signatures during summer events where crowds gather…

I found this page absolutely fascinating.  I had no idea that we had other candidates to choose from, as the write in candidates were not on the electronic ballot.  And being without access to media (no TV antenna in the community room at the time), nor did I have more than an hour per time from the library’s internet computers…so information was limited, as are most poor.  And I would venture a guess that even with cable TV, many middle class were also ignorant of this–funny how the nooz just doesn’t seem to get around to covering important issues like this….they’d rather scare you into getting a vaccine that will likely cause as much harm to your body as any good or tell you not to take Vitamin E because some bogus *study* says it’s bad for you…pfft.

The invisible walls that came after the visible…

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A commenter on Diane Ravitch’s blog put up this video:

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More here on the Detroit fight for worker’s rights, i.e., the pensions they were promised, versus the bond holders.  Like I said before, everybody has to lose a little bit–the city workers should not bear the brunt of it.

Juror speaks out on Zimmerman trial

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(I was going to take a break from blogging, but this is so compelling…)

One of the jurors in George Zimmerman’s trial, the only minority, spoke out on the verdict.  Democracy Now!  explores how the case was mishandled by the prosecution AND commentary on the juror’s misgivings about the verdict.

From Maddy’s own statement, she says she thought that they had to let Zimmerman go because they didn’t have clear evidence that he intended on killing Trayvon that night.  But that is a murder charge, not manslaughter.  Manslaughter is different from murder by intention, as the attorney states in the DN! interview.

I also think Maddy was intimidated into giving in–because she states she was holding out to the end.

And please, can we stop complaining about jury duty?  You can’t complain about verdicts if you’re not willing to do your civic duty and serve on jury duty.

 

 

 

 

Scientists against GMOs

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Wake-Up Call has a blog up on a new paper by scientists against genetically modified organisms (GMO’s).

From the paper:

For example, the claim that conventional plant breeders have been “genetically modifying” crops
for centuries by selective breeding and that GM crops are no different is incorrect (see 1.1). The term
“genetic modification” is recognised in common usage and in national and international laws to refer
to the use of recombinant DNA techniques to transfer genetic material between organisms in a way
that would not take place naturally, bringing about alterations in genetic makeup and properties.
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In my view, this “muddying of the waters” as they say, is a way to placate the growing public alarm about what they are
putting in our food supply.  See, if you can claim that GMO’s were there all along, the public is pacified and the current
push of asking for GMO labeling will die a slow death…
….meanwhile, the public continues to suffer from GMO induced leaky gut causing susceptibility to heavy metal poisoning,
allergies, chronic fatigue, etc., and their doctors will be clueless.
Important points of the paper:
1.  They assert that it’s a mistake saying changing one gene is only changing one gene….the scientists assert that changing one
gene has something of a ripple effect. It makes total sense that the genes aren’t isolated and they work in concert with other
genes, thus when you change it, it has unintended consequences:  crop nutritional value, allergens, toxins, environmental harm.
The most striking point of this section:
These unexpected changes are especially dangerous because they are irreversible.
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They go on to say that unlike pollutants that degrade over time, GMO’s do not.  Pandora’s Box, baby.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at the “atomic gardens” mentioned on page 12, but still shocking now, looking back,
at how they were using “peaceful radiation” to change plants beneficially.  Wow.  How naive we were.  I wonder at
the health of the people who ate those plants?  What about the people and wildlife surrounding these “atomic gardens”?
Since we know that people living within 20 miles of nuclear power plants are more likely to have thyroid issues….I
wonder about the effects of this type of radiation…
Well, I’m off to read more–it’s got 123 pages, so it’s gonna be awhile. 🙂