In the most disappointing act yet from the Obama administration, the President announced yesterday that he will not sign a treaty banning landmines. (see http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN24329250) Landmines kill and maim civilians, especially children,
Archive for November, 2009
US reserves the Right to Maim Children
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009Cider-Making at Darling Hill Farm
Saturday, November 21st, 2009Last night a bunch of us got together to help our CSA farmer Leigh-Mae make the last batch of raw unpateurized cider of the season. I took a little time off from washing and sorting apples to make a little video record of what it was like to tend and feed the dinosaur-like 1950′s model industrial cider press in the basement of the barn. The cider will be sold and given to local people, some will be frozen for winter use and some will be left to ferment into hard cider. While there is at least one orchard in New Hampshire that specializes in the rare heirloom apples that make good hard cider, we were using a variety of sweet apples to make sweet cider that will be drunk right away. Earlier in the day, Leigh-Mae had roasted a whole pig on an outdoor grill. For us vegetarians, this is not an attraction, but farmers in these parts do traditioanlly raise a variety of poultry and animals to use the vegetable waste and produce rich manure as well as milk, eggs and meat. Everybody brought a little something for the potluck dinner and folks stayed quite late talking. I played pennywhistle and sang a few songs, including a duet of “Old MacDonald” with a child and another duet of “Tom Dooley” with a neighbor my own age. The music behind the video is me playing a b-flat pennywhistle in the echoing stairwell of Olsen Hall at U Mass Lowell last week.
Carbon Bill is NOT a Plot to Steal your House
Friday, November 20th, 2009A blog post entitled “Cap and Trade: A License Required for Your Home” (e.g. http://…com/yzvbzp4) is making the rounds of blogs on MySpace and elsewhere. It seeks to scare people, to promote an anti-government paranoia.
The Cap-and Trade Bill (HR 2454 The American Clean Energy Act of 2009 or the Waxman-Markey Bill) is a behemoth of a document, almost as large as the health-care reform bill (1500 as opposed to 2100 pages long!). It contains provisions that get a lot of the worst polluters partly off the hook, and it may not do enough to curb global warming, but it is generally a step in the right direction. One thing it is not is a “Carbon Tax”, but its opponents are attacking it as if it were. I would have preferred to see a carbon tax, which would be simpler to enforce, but this is the bill we have got… the US response to global warming. for a balanced view of the act, I recommend http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-stavins/cap-and-trade-versus-the_b_312835.html
The blog posting I mention above, which has gone viral, makes this cl..
Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act, you won
Flying Squirrel at Dark of Moon
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009In moonless mirk
you flatten
slip through to warmness.
Below
Two bigger squirrels
flat
Their wings touching
asleep.
Democratically Distributing the Waste
Monday, November 9th, 2009Last night I dreamed, among other things, that a fleet of dumptrucks came to my house and dropped piles of miscellaneous construction debris in our parking area, blocking our cars from leaving. This was big chunks if houses, roofs, even the complete frame of a one-story house. Each piece of wood and metal had a purple tag that said FOR SALE: MAKE AN OFFER. I called the police and complained and they told me that everybody in town had gotten the same number of house-shards delivered. It seems the destruction from last year’s ice-storm (about this time last year, hmm) had wrecked many houses and the town couldn’t afford to dispose of the rubble, so they were holding a kind of town-wide yard sale to see if they could raise some money by selling it. (in my dream I was able to see the pristine lawns in other parts of town covered with the same kind of debris.) I said, “But this is our driveway and we can’t get out!” The policeman at the other end of the line answered that I just needed to find someone with a truck who wanted to buy it. Everyone in town is in the same position.
I am somehow reminded of the health-care plan that has been so badly bungled by Congress… everybody now will have to buy health insurance from gouging mega-corporations, whether they can afford it or not; this is a burden that falls so unfairly, so heavily on some and so lightly on others. Please, why can’t we just raise taxes enough to dispose of all the debris as a town? Why can’t we afford something good for all of us as a nation instead of making it an individual financial transaction?
Accidentally deleted all my Youtube videos
Monday, November 2nd, 2009I was uploading a video to YouTube today and it didn’t stop uploading after about an hour and a half. I decided to delete it and start over. In the process, I seem to have deleted all the videos I have ever posted there. If you try to watch any of my YouTube videos that are posted on this blog, you won’t be able to until I have uploaded them and edited the links. I apologize profusely.