Understand, we have one of the least industrial agricultural setups in the world. No desire to start a CAFO. But with food prices going the way they're going, my hunch is that getting the average consumer into this idea is going to be an uphill slog.
Study: Factory Farming Taking Toll on Health, Economy
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; 5:47 PM
Factory farming takes a big hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs.
The 111-page report released today, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" long used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for a raft of associated costs.
Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes.
Several experts said the report, by a commission of experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests.
In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phase-out of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena.
"At the end of his second term, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation about the dangers of the military-industrial complex -- an unhealthy alliance between the defense industry, the Pentagon and their friends on Capitol Hill," wrote Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Production, which wrote the report. "Now the agro-industrial complex -- an alliance of agricultural commodity groups, scientists at academic institutions who are paid by the industry, and their friends on Capitol Hill -- is a concern in animal food production in the 21st century."
The report, "Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Production in America," comes at a time when food, agriculture and animal welfare issues are prominent in the American psyche.
Food prices are rising faster than they have for decades. Concerns about global climate change have brought new attention to the fact that modern agriculture is responsible for about 20 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas production. And recent meat recalls, punctuated by the release of undercover footage of dairy cows being abused at a California slaughterhouse, have struck a chord with consumers increasingly attuned to the realities of where their meat and dairy products come from.
The report acknowledges that the decades-long trend towards reliance on "concentrated animal feeding operations," or CAFOs, has brought some benefits, including cheaper food. In 1970, the average American spent 4.2 percent of his or her income to buy 194 pounds of red meat and poultry annually. By 2005 typical Americans were spending just 2.1 percent of their income for 221 pounds per year.
But the system has also brought unintended consequences. With thousands of animals kept in close quarters, diseases spread quickly. To prevent some of those outbreaks -- and, more often, simply to spur faster growth -- factory farms routinely treat animals with antibiotics, speeding the development of drug-resistant bacteria and in some cases rendering important medicines less effective in people.
The vast majority of U.S. antibiotic use is for animals, the commission noted, adding that because of the lack of oversight by the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies, even regulators can only estimate how many drugs are being given to animals.
The commission urges stronger reporting requirements for companies and a phase-out and then ban on antibiotics in farm animals except as treatments for disease, a policy already initiated in some European countries.
"That's a good recommendation. A strong recommendation," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which released its own report last week documenting billions of dollars in farm subsidies to factory farming operations and annual federal expenditures of $100 million just to clean up their ongoing environmental damage.
The Pew report also calls for tighter regulation of factory farm waste, finding that toxic gases and dust from animal waste are making CAFO workers and neighbors ill.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
So. Not. Good.
At $200 bbl, US gasoline is about $7 per gallon. Not. So. Good. Here are some of the ugly details from the Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4200dc9e-1521-11dd-996c-0000779fd2ac.html
The good news is that we extended the garden another 30-40 feet on Sunday. Took some of the pressure off the indoor flats, putting some broccoli and kale into the new bads. We're going to keep expanding until we run out of space, probably rototill the back yard and plant a mix of squash, beans and corn along the driveway.
The Saturday was a little more entertaining -- spent it learning to make cheese at Ricki Carroll's seminar in Ashfield, Mass. Went home and promptly started a big batch of cheddar, which is currently aging under cheesecloth and an asparagus steamer (keeps the cats and mice out) on a high shelf. I'll know how it comes out in, oh, two months or so.
Anyway. I'd recommend Ricki's class highly. The only downside is, there's not an opening until September. And they're crowded. Very crowded. Must've been 40 people at this one. It was an interesting group, though. Most of the people younger than me were in it for the sustainability issues -- they want to be able to make more of their own food when they have to make it. The folks older than me were more, eh, it's something fun to do in retirement.
Still scratching my head a bit about that one. But I did get a fair amount of supply -- some more cultures (thermophilic and mesophilic), propionic Shermanii for the Swiss, more salt and calcium chloride, and some butter muslin. All in all, I was restrained. Seriously.
Got a lot to do this week, barely time to take a break from the day job. But just saw the FT story and thought, yeeesh. I'm only commuting upstairs and downstairs, and thinking I'd better get more livestock. And one of these crosscut guys, since even a chainsaw is about to get mighty damn expensive:
http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=26&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=836&iSubCat=847&iProductID=26
Raining like hell, and supposed to get back down into the low 20s by midweek. Springtime in Vermont ...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4200dc9e-1521-11dd-996c-0000779fd2ac.html
The good news is that we extended the garden another 30-40 feet on Sunday. Took some of the pressure off the indoor flats, putting some broccoli and kale into the new bads. We're going to keep expanding until we run out of space, probably rototill the back yard and plant a mix of squash, beans and corn along the driveway.
The Saturday was a little more entertaining -- spent it learning to make cheese at Ricki Carroll's seminar in Ashfield, Mass. Went home and promptly started a big batch of cheddar, which is currently aging under cheesecloth and an asparagus steamer (keeps the cats and mice out) on a high shelf. I'll know how it comes out in, oh, two months or so.
Anyway. I'd recommend Ricki's class highly. The only downside is, there's not an opening until September. And they're crowded. Very crowded. Must've been 40 people at this one. It was an interesting group, though. Most of the people younger than me were in it for the sustainability issues -- they want to be able to make more of their own food when they have to make it. The folks older than me were more, eh, it's something fun to do in retirement.
Still scratching my head a bit about that one. But I did get a fair amount of supply -- some more cultures (thermophilic and mesophilic), propionic Shermanii for the Swiss, more salt and calcium chloride, and some butter muslin. All in all, I was restrained. Seriously.
Got a lot to do this week, barely time to take a break from the day job. But just saw the FT story and thought, yeeesh. I'm only commuting upstairs and downstairs, and thinking I'd better get more livestock. And one of these crosscut guys, since even a chainsaw is about to get mighty damn expensive:
http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=26&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=836&iSubCat=847&iProductID=26
Raining like hell, and supposed to get back down into the low 20s by midweek. Springtime in Vermont ...
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Doomers Are Out This Week
... and how.
Feeling better. Have the cheesemaking class on Saturday, and will hopefully rent a rototiller on Sunday. The crud is just about gone, and the shoulder feels a tad better. Been going hammer and tongs at the day job, at the expense of enjoying some truly gorgeous weather.
Here are the reads du jour, beginning with the quite inspirational and winding up with the utterly doomed (but yes, I did go to the co-op tonight and get a 25-pound bag of brown rice. And no, the Brattleboro Food Co-op was not limiting its customers).
First, the inspirational:
April 23, 2008
Starting His Retirement With a Splash
By PETE WILLIAMS
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Jeff Conine could have filled the first months of his post-baseball career with golf, fishing and travel — the usual pursuits that a 41-year-old with financial security might enjoy.
Instead, Conine, a 17-year veteran of six big-league teams, has spent long hours swimming, cycling and running in preparation for an ambitious triathlon schedule that will culminate in the Ironman world championship in Kona, Hawaii, in October. Several former teammates, accustomed to the less rigorous conditioning of baseball, have questioned his sanity.
“Guys in my position are supposed to sit back and relax, not do something ridiculous like this,” said Conine, who lives in South Florida and will make his triathlon debut here Sunday at the St. Anthony’s Triathlon.
The race attracts more than 4,000 competitors and is considered the kickoff to the sport’s national calendar. As an Olympic-distance event (0.93-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride, and 6.2-mile run), it is a small fraction of the grueling Ironman distance race, but longer than entry-level sprint triathlons.
Conine spent the final six weeks of last season with the Mets and is best known for his role as a first baseman and outfielder for the Florida Marlins teams that won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. A longtime follower of the Ironman world championship, he was inspired to take up the sport by David Samson, the Marlins’ president, who finished the event in 2006.
Conine, who stands 6 feet 1 inch, finished last season at 220 pounds, heavy by triathlon standards, and until recently had limited swimming experience. But he was regarded as one of baseball’s better athletes, having played professional racquetball as a minor leaguer.
He certainly looks the part, having been told for years that he resembles Lance Armstrong, a likeness that seems more pronounced as Conine loses weight while training.
Though baseball is an anaerobic sport with short bursts of activity, unlike the long aerobic nature of triathlon, Conine believes the experience of playing a mentally taxing sport over a 162-game season will ease his transition.
“It’s all about being mentally tough,” he said. “With long-distance triathlon, it’s all about knowing when to push your body and when to rest and persevering through these boring six-hour rides and three-hour runs.”
Next, the amusing:
Green Acres II: When Neighbors Become Farmers
Suburban Arugula Is Organic and Fresh, but About That Manure...
By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1
BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled.
"I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those days are slipping away."
A growing number of suburban Americans are earning extra cash by growing food in their backyards.
Since 2006, Mr. Nash, 31, has uprooted his backyard and the front or back yards of eight of his Boulder neighbors, turning them into minifarms growing tomatoes, bok choy, garlic and beets.
Between May and September, he gives weekly bagfuls of fresh-picked vegetables and herbs to people here who have bought "shares" of his farming operation. Neighbors who lend their yards to the effort are paid in free produce and yard work.
A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his yard farms and the seedlings he stores in a greenhouse behind his house.
Farmers don't necessarily live in the country anymore. They might just be your next-door neighbor, hoping to turn a dollar satisfying the blooming demand for organic, locally grown foods.
Unlike traditional home gardeners who devote a corner of the yard to a few rows of vegetables, a new crop of minifarmers is tearing up the whole yard and planting foods such as arugula and kohlrabi that restaurants might want to buy. The locally grown food movement has also created a new market for front-yard farmers.
"Agriculture is becoming more and more suburban," says Roxanne Christensen, publisher of Spin-Farming LLC, a Philadelphia company started in 2005 that sells guides and holds seminars teaching a small-scale farming technique that involves selecting high-profit vegetables like kale, carrots and tomatoes to grow, and then quickly replacing crops to reap the most from plots smaller than an acre. "Land is very expensive in the country, so people are saying, 'why not just start growing in the backyard?' "
And on the "we're doomed" front:
Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs."
(Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash.
Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
Feeling better. Have the cheesemaking class on Saturday, and will hopefully rent a rototiller on Sunday. The crud is just about gone, and the shoulder feels a tad better. Been going hammer and tongs at the day job, at the expense of enjoying some truly gorgeous weather.
Here are the reads du jour, beginning with the quite inspirational and winding up with the utterly doomed (but yes, I did go to the co-op tonight and get a 25-pound bag of brown rice. And no, the Brattleboro Food Co-op was not limiting its customers).
First, the inspirational:
April 23, 2008
Starting His Retirement With a Splash
By PETE WILLIAMS
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Jeff Conine could have filled the first months of his post-baseball career with golf, fishing and travel — the usual pursuits that a 41-year-old with financial security might enjoy.
Instead, Conine, a 17-year veteran of six big-league teams, has spent long hours swimming, cycling and running in preparation for an ambitious triathlon schedule that will culminate in the Ironman world championship in Kona, Hawaii, in October. Several former teammates, accustomed to the less rigorous conditioning of baseball, have questioned his sanity.
“Guys in my position are supposed to sit back and relax, not do something ridiculous like this,” said Conine, who lives in South Florida and will make his triathlon debut here Sunday at the St. Anthony’s Triathlon.
The race attracts more than 4,000 competitors and is considered the kickoff to the sport’s national calendar. As an Olympic-distance event (0.93-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride, and 6.2-mile run), it is a small fraction of the grueling Ironman distance race, but longer than entry-level sprint triathlons.
Conine spent the final six weeks of last season with the Mets and is best known for his role as a first baseman and outfielder for the Florida Marlins teams that won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. A longtime follower of the Ironman world championship, he was inspired to take up the sport by David Samson, the Marlins’ president, who finished the event in 2006.
Conine, who stands 6 feet 1 inch, finished last season at 220 pounds, heavy by triathlon standards, and until recently had limited swimming experience. But he was regarded as one of baseball’s better athletes, having played professional racquetball as a minor leaguer.
He certainly looks the part, having been told for years that he resembles Lance Armstrong, a likeness that seems more pronounced as Conine loses weight while training.
Though baseball is an anaerobic sport with short bursts of activity, unlike the long aerobic nature of triathlon, Conine believes the experience of playing a mentally taxing sport over a 162-game season will ease his transition.
“It’s all about being mentally tough,” he said. “With long-distance triathlon, it’s all about knowing when to push your body and when to rest and persevering through these boring six-hour rides and three-hour runs.”
Next, the amusing:
Green Acres II: When Neighbors Become Farmers
Suburban Arugula Is Organic and Fresh, but About That Manure...
By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1
BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled.
"I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those days are slipping away."
A growing number of suburban Americans are earning extra cash by growing food in their backyards.
Since 2006, Mr. Nash, 31, has uprooted his backyard and the front or back yards of eight of his Boulder neighbors, turning them into minifarms growing tomatoes, bok choy, garlic and beets.
Between May and September, he gives weekly bagfuls of fresh-picked vegetables and herbs to people here who have bought "shares" of his farming operation. Neighbors who lend their yards to the effort are paid in free produce and yard work.
A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his yard farms and the seedlings he stores in a greenhouse behind his house.
Farmers don't necessarily live in the country anymore. They might just be your next-door neighbor, hoping to turn a dollar satisfying the blooming demand for organic, locally grown foods.
Unlike traditional home gardeners who devote a corner of the yard to a few rows of vegetables, a new crop of minifarmers is tearing up the whole yard and planting foods such as arugula and kohlrabi that restaurants might want to buy. The locally grown food movement has also created a new market for front-yard farmers.
"Agriculture is becoming more and more suburban," says Roxanne Christensen, publisher of Spin-Farming LLC, a Philadelphia company started in 2005 that sells guides and holds seminars teaching a small-scale farming technique that involves selecting high-profit vegetables like kale, carrots and tomatoes to grow, and then quickly replacing crops to reap the most from plots smaller than an acre. "Land is very expensive in the country, so people are saying, 'why not just start growing in the backyard?' "
And on the "we're doomed" front:
Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.
I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.
No, this is not a drill.
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs."
(Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash.
Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Postscript
It's occasionally good to get some positive reinforcement. Good Pollan article in today's NY Times Magazine:
You begin to see that growing even a little of your own food is, as Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one of those solutions that, instead of begetting a new set of problems — the way “solutions” like ethanol or nuclear power inevitably do — actually beget other solutions, and not only of the kind that save carbon. Still more valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need. We may also need the food. Could gardens provide it? Well, during World War II, victory gardens supplied as much as 40 percent of the produce Americans ate.
But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen. Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools. You will have reduced the power of the cheap-energy mind by personally overcoming its most debilitating weakness: its helplessness and the fact that it can’t do much of anything that doesn’t involve division or subtraction. The garden’s season-long transit from seed to ripe fruit — will you get a load of that zucchini?! — suggests that the operations of addition and multiplication still obtain, that the abundance of nature is not exhausted. The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.
You begin to see that growing even a little of your own food is, as Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one of those solutions that, instead of begetting a new set of problems — the way “solutions” like ethanol or nuclear power inevitably do — actually beget other solutions, and not only of the kind that save carbon. Still more valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need. We may also need the food. Could gardens provide it? Well, during World War II, victory gardens supplied as much as 40 percent of the produce Americans ate.
But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen. Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools. You will have reduced the power of the cheap-energy mind by personally overcoming its most debilitating weakness: its helplessness and the fact that it can’t do much of anything that doesn’t involve division or subtraction. The garden’s season-long transit from seed to ripe fruit — will you get a load of that zucchini?! — suggests that the operations of addition and multiplication still obtain, that the abundance of nature is not exhausted. The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.
Le Crud
It's coming, I know it. Weird feeling at the back of the throat, check. Starting to feel a bit snotty, check. Run-down feeling in general, check. Occasional dizziness, check.
Sigh. I don't need this.
Didn't stop me from getting up and going to town on the chicken run. I had a bit more chicken nastiness than anticipated -- 32 wheelbarrow-fulls, to be precise. Dumped it all close to where the back garden is going. Lisa raked it out.
Given the way the shoulder is feeling (bad), I'm thinking we're going to wind up renting a rototiller for the bulk of the garden creation. Just a little too much manual labor right now.
After I finished the chicken run cleaning, I did a little bit more work on it, mostly measuring for the new door and reinstalling some perches. The plan is to finish up the door, put the netting over the top, and then proceed with a duck rodeo. Yee-haw.
Also put up a clothesline and trimmed about 50 more feet of brush along the fenceline. Nasty, sticky thorns that took forever to get done. At least I got to listen to the frogs and owls while doing it.
Here's to hoping the Emergen-C kicks in.
Sigh. I don't need this.
Didn't stop me from getting up and going to town on the chicken run. I had a bit more chicken nastiness than anticipated -- 32 wheelbarrow-fulls, to be precise. Dumped it all close to where the back garden is going. Lisa raked it out.
Given the way the shoulder is feeling (bad), I'm thinking we're going to wind up renting a rototiller for the bulk of the garden creation. Just a little too much manual labor right now.
After I finished the chicken run cleaning, I did a little bit more work on it, mostly measuring for the new door and reinstalling some perches. The plan is to finish up the door, put the netting over the top, and then proceed with a duck rodeo. Yee-haw.
Also put up a clothesline and trimmed about 50 more feet of brush along the fenceline. Nasty, sticky thorns that took forever to get done. At least I got to listen to the frogs and owls while doing it.
Here's to hoping the Emergen-C kicks in.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Smells Like Crap
Must be crap.
Wow. Gorgeous day today. Believe I got a sunburn (too bad I'm so damn fat). Anyway, we fixed the frame of the chicken run. Didn't take as long as I was afraid it'd take. Cleaning out the inside of the run, though, was another matter. Imagine a 12 foot by 12 foot space, about six inches deep in hay, chicken crap, and chicken piss.
Oh, and it's been sitting there all winter.
I piled up about a cubic yard of the stuff before punting for the day. Went to town on the back fence, clearing brush along the soon-to-be fenceline with a pair of loppers. Shoulder was just absolutely killing me by the time it got dark.
Made dinner for the kids, did all the dishes, started everyone's laundry, and did some general sweeping, dusting and other cleaning around the house. Lisa baked bread, worked on the garden and did some cleaning. Watched the Jazz beat up on the Rox until midnight -- I think they're already done this year -- and went to bed.
More chickenshit tomorrow.
Wow. Gorgeous day today. Believe I got a sunburn (too bad I'm so damn fat). Anyway, we fixed the frame of the chicken run. Didn't take as long as I was afraid it'd take. Cleaning out the inside of the run, though, was another matter. Imagine a 12 foot by 12 foot space, about six inches deep in hay, chicken crap, and chicken piss.
Oh, and it's been sitting there all winter.
I piled up about a cubic yard of the stuff before punting for the day. Went to town on the back fence, clearing brush along the soon-to-be fenceline with a pair of loppers. Shoulder was just absolutely killing me by the time it got dark.
Made dinner for the kids, did all the dishes, started everyone's laundry, and did some general sweeping, dusting and other cleaning around the house. Lisa baked bread, worked on the garden and did some cleaning. Watched the Jazz beat up on the Rox until midnight -- I think they're already done this year -- and went to bed.
More chickenshit tomorrow.
Friday, April 18, 2008
I'm Back, and Tired
... so a couple of days in Washington, and I'm beat. I didn't run, I didn't exercise, I didn't do tourist things -- although I was there for the pope's visit -- I just worked. And my shoulder (wah!) feels like hell. But it's gorgeous weather out there. Spring's here. Finally.
First things first. Rockets, in six. They just can't lose to a team that plays defense like this:
First things first. Rockets, in six. They just can't lose to a team that plays defense like this:
The Jazz. Like Indiana Jones: "The Jazz. I hate those guys." The Rox need another 22-game streak, although (I think) 16 would do quite nicely.
Wendell Berry has an awesome essay in this month's Harper's. I'm going to reprint a few relevant snippets. If you don't have a subscription, get one. Between the Index, Berry, and this months' Kevin Phillips story on how the government cooks economic numbers, this month's issue alone is well worth the $16.97 annual subscription price:
And so, in confronting the phenomenon of “peak oil,” we are really confronting the end of our customary delusion of “more.” Whichever way we turn, from now on, we are going to find a limit beyond which there will be no more. To hit these limits at top speed is not a rational choice. To start slowing down, with the idea of avoiding catastrophe, is a rational choice and a viable one if we can recover the necessary political sanity.
Of course it makes sense to consider alternative energy sources provided they make sense. But also we will have to re-examine the economic structures of our lives, and conform them to the tolerances and limits of our earthly places. When there is no more, our one choice is to make the most and best of what we have.
More reading, from the NYTimes:
April 18, 2008
Sticker Shock in the Organic Aisles
By ANDREW MARTIN and KIM SEVERSON
Shoppers have long been willing to pay a premium for organic food. But how much is too much?
Rising prices for organic groceries are prompting some consumers to question their devotion to food produced without pesticides, chemical fertilizers or antibiotics. In some parts of the country, a loaf of organic bread can cost $4.50, a pound of pasta has hit $3, and organic milk is closing in on $7 a gallon.
“The prices have gotten ridiculous,” said Brenda Czarnik, who was shopping recently at a food cooperative in St. Paul.
Of course, we think we have problems? Read on ...
April 18, 2008
Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger
By MARC LACEY
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.
Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.
Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”
That anger is palpable across the globe. The food crisis is not only being felt among the poor but is also eroding the gains of the working and middle classes, sowing volatile levels of discontent and putting new pressures on fragile governments.
I'm guessing not even everyone in our own country is concerned about the price of organics. Lots and lots of rough times out there:
April 18, 2008
Workers Get Fewer Hours, Deepening the Downturn
By PETER S. GOODMAN
Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers.
“We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” said Kim Baker, whose take-home pay at the plant has recently dropped to $450 a week, from more than $600. “You’ve got to watch everything. If we go to town now, it’s for a reason.”
Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management consulting. Growing numbers of people are settling for part-time work out of a failure to secure a full-time position.
The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance to other important areas of the economy.
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