Monthly Archives: September 2013

David Suzuki: Australian scientists should be up on the ramparts

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Uncategorized

This is such a brilliant speech. It’s too bad that those who need to pay the most attention have no desire to do so.

Damn the Matrix

And for something completely different, today a guest post by my hero, David Suzuki…….

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Despite the enormous success of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 70s, we have fundamentally failed to use each of those battles to broaden the public understanding of why we were battling. It wasn’t just the power of environmentalists against developers, environmentalists against the oil industry. It was because we had a different way of looking at the world.

Environmentalism is a way of seeing our place within the biosphere. That’s what the battles were fought over. But we have failed to shift the perspective; or in the popular jargon, we failed to move or shift the paradigm. We are still stuck in the old way of seeing things.

I come to many of the politicians and corporate executives that environmentalists have been fighting all these years. They are driven by a totally different set…

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Welcome to the Jungle!

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in sustainability

The jungleEr, my garden, that is…

This is what happens to the weeds, along with the good plants, when it rains for five days straight.  The loofa plant has climbed across the closer bed, even though it’s planted in the farther bed, and has attached itself to the house and has nearly reached the rain gutters.  The San Marzano squash plant is almost as tall as I am and gives me a foot long squash every day.  I am getting 5-6 lbs tomatoes every other day.  I am sick of cucumbers, and if I forget to harvest for even one day, they are 2 feet long and bigger than my calves in diameter!  I chopped ONE and made 12 half pints of relish!  The tomatoes have literally overgrown the entire bed and I have to do a combination yoga/pilates routine to avoid stepping on plants to harvest.  Not very aerobic but I’m drenched in sweat by the time I get done, and it’s a good workout for strength.

The amaranth is going gangbusters, and the entire yard is filled with purslane, and the chickens are in heaven getting the ‘weeds’ over the fence.

The fig tree is producing more than I can keep up with, the indigo is amazing and I will have the best indigo pot EVER this year.

I love gardening.

 

Perusing Craigslist for jobs that don’t exist :)

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in common sense, Crafts, For Sale, home, Independence Days, work and tagged with , , , ,

I looked in the skilled trades/crafts section of Craigslist today, just to see what types of jobs are being posted.

Framer

RV mechanic technician

Plumber

Experienced tile layer

And that’s about it.  I had to laugh — did I really think I was going to find a post wanting a weaver??  Or a spinner??

I am doing my first commission spinning though, nearly 2 lbs of an alpaca cria (baby) fleece (actually it’s called blanket) my friend tried to process and was worried she was going to destroy if she did any more.  Some of it is already in roving with lots of nepps (little balls of fiber) and I’m spinning that into singles that will become a worsted weight 3 ply.  Some of it is washed but not processed in any other way; this I will card on my drum carder, very slowly and carefully to keep the smooth and lofty nature of the fiber.

Ideally, the owner of the fleece (not my friend, she owns a fiber mill) will end up with a textured yarn and a smooth yarn, and be happy with her first fleece product.  She is new to owning fiber animals, and recently learned how to knit in anticipation of using her own yarn.  I am enjoying spinning this so far; it’s deliciously soft and fine and most of the prickly things are falling out as I spin.

I wish I could do more commission spinning and less actual working.  It’s less money by a long shot, but I don’t have to get dressed up, drive a long way away, worry about meals and drinks, or stress out about deadlines or working overtime.

Totally amazed…

Posted by thetinfoilhatsociety in Uncategorized

Totally amazed by the number of people who I previously had *thought* were simply right wing, conservative people, who watch Fox news too much….

who turn out to be racists in the most literal sense of the word, even going so far as to bemoan the loss of “white culture” in the US.

What??

Call me stupid, ignorant, clueless, but I really don’t think I realized how many people honestly hate those not exactly like themselves and think they are superior to the average person – let alone someone with brown skin.

To me, different = exotic = adventure = probably good, or at least interesting.  Apparently to many people different = bad.  No possibility of anything else.

There are things I don’t like about cultures that I am somewhat familiar with but did not grow up in.  There are also things about my own culture that I absolutely hate, and I grew up in it.  So what?  I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make me an *other* hater.

What is it with so many white, upper middle class, middle aged, moderately educated men (mostly) that they are so threatened by someone not like themselves?