Keep Litter Out of Oceans and Local Watersheds

In the U.S. we have the Toxic Release Inventory. Companies are required to estimate their release of hundreds of toxic compounds. The searchable TRI data can help local residents find out about waste wafting their way from local companies. Millions of tons of hazardous waste blows through urban areas each year, waiting to settle on the landscape, or in our lungs, a direct subsidy of corporate malfeasance and sacrificing our health for their benefit. Any nation that cannot provide free health care should not allow the sickening of the population. How can we tolerate the oppression of the masses for far off interests that may never return capital to the region? The old way thinking that brought us the bank collapse, that has revealed multiple layers of corruption and graft, threatens to bamboozle the least educated citizens to give the wealthy another chance! We have seen what the results of their flagrant violations of economic forces that deem necessary, customers. Remember them? Those are the folks who feel confident enough and wealthy enough to spend. When we understand that each and every dollar we spend is a vote, we will change the theatre of the debate.

Just as we need to confront the lies told us by the rich and powerful, we need to change the rhetoric to reflect better sense of the issues. Illegal immigration has dropped precipitously as our economy has hit the skids. Into the oceans go sharks who claim that colored people are costing our society millions and these folks need to be deported. All this fight over a tiny fraction of the workforce? Ten times that cost would be realized when the cash economy is taken into account. Add to this the untaxed barter economy and you have something to sneeze at, but how would it sell to the cowboy identity we give ourselves in this culture? We collectively try to run about five miles per hour over the speed limit and get frustrated when folks ahead want to go the limit. All of these go into the ocean of reality that ebbs and flows around us daily. When we turn on the tube, or LCD matrix, we continue to see truck commercials. pedal to the metal past peak oil. The spewing that we do today has a lasting responsibility. We need to think carefully before we reach out into the marketplace, to pluck only what we need. Much has been made of distributing our money locally. One of the greatest savings is packaging. Less packaging will always reduce waste. Keeping waste under control by pre-cycling makes the most economic and environmental sense!

It is long past time for the perspective of truth to be something that everyone in politics is aware of. A group representing 80% of nuns has gone on record to implore that the energy people are spending focusing on one issue, abortion be put into solving other pressing issues that lose out to a "star" evil, or inhumanity. What about the inhumanity of poverty? The elderly? Abuse & neglect? Justice demands that we not hide behind any single issue, we have to do far more! Putting our crap out into the world around us only guarantees that everyone else will eventually get the shitty side of the stick. It is truly a lose lose situation. the time has come for the ultra wealthy to come to heel. The poor and middle class are tired of getting poo on our shoes, (and worse!) the lies perpetrated by the ultra-wealthy. Just as the "Moral Majority" was neither, the Tea Party push to getting obstructionist representatives in Congress has a dismal track record. They have been hurt by their own success. It is untenable to argue that the best we had to hope for was to make sure nothing gets done. It is embarrassing! By denying the truth, or even just turning your back on it, the public will find out. If we are all very lucky, we will find out sooner rather than later. Time has come for us to stop polluting the areas around us with perversions and lies. Many of the lies have been repeated so often as to have gained a "life" of their own. deception feeds on ignorance and by making us all feel so overextended, we can be dissuaded from basic investigation.

Clearing up facts dictates that many of us change our minds about serious questions. I, myself and many others, believe that we will make better decisions if we are down to earth, not floating on the gigantic ocean mat of plastic that has developed in the Pacific. There is no away. I can't quote Buckminster Fuller enough, "There are no passengers on Starship Earth, we are all crew."

We can no longer tolerate the tone of the debate being misguided by lies. Those who reap the benefits of corporate welfare sure as hell don't want to let that go. No one said not to expect a fight, no matter what changes get made, you will rock someone's boat. Grow up! The vast majority have sacrificed in thousands of tiny ways. Here's one last bit of truth. The reason that full service gas is virtually non-existent is because by spreading the cost of benzene poisoning over the largest number of people in the population, Federal Regulators could make it possible for the pumpers of gasoline no longer liable for health effects from the dispensing of these precious fluids. Keep in mind that if you stand by the pump, as required, benzene will be detectable on your breath for five hours! Gasoline dispensers did not want to be liable for harm, so the only option was to spread the risk out amongst the largest number of people. Since I found this out, I have done two things to limit my exposure, drive less and less and drive more and more efficient vehicles! This in turn improves the local environment. how much? I don't know, but multiplied by millions, or perhaps many billions, I'm sure it is worht the conscious effort! This week I have to turn down work because it is too far away Cost of transport for 100+ miles per day would drain away any benefit that I could receive from work. The greatest blessing may be the lack of  pumping a bunch more fumes into the atmosphere!    

Forgiveness

The most moving story that I have heard that has come out of the Colorado shootings was not about facts and figures about the number of people shot, wounded or killed. I am ambivalent about whether or not the shooter's purchases should have been a warning to officials. I would feel much better if I could put the burden on some one or some thing that "went wrong" to allow such a tragedy to unfold, but within this difficult to fathom scenario, there is one ray of hope that has shown through. an enlightened being was in the audience for the showing of the ill fated movie that night. One who the newspapers tried to deem a hero, for throwing himself on a fellow patron to shield her from the spray of bullets that filled the movie theater just in time to save her.

The press is loathe to report the most important aspect of this event, the one that has the most power to change us for the better or create a more stable culture over time. As reporters clamoured, seeking the most outrageous slant on the terrible story, one man had the most important thing to say, but you probably will not see it on the nightly news or read it in your local paper. What the man wanted to make clear is that there is nothing heroic about doing what you can for others. Taking a bullet to save a stranger's life is not worthy of the term hero. I wish that I had heard the man's words myself, so that I could quote him exactly. He said that even feeling justified anger has no benefit for the world. We can all click our tongues and utter our dismay at the senseless and methodically planned execution of innocents, but the truly heroic act that is required of us all is to forgive.

Shot in the leg for his response to the attack, he may well have saved a life, but what he wanted us to understand is that the crippling hatred, judgement and angst that we may carry for the shooter is the most crippling disease of all. The power to ruin many more lives exists within us as we focus our hatred and judgement on the pitiful creature that pulled the trigger, booby-trapped his home and plotted the events of this past Friday. Those who forget that the most heroic act we can all take is to forgive may allow themselves to be consumed by anger, hemmed in by their own hostility and constrained by their rush to judgement, but for at least one man who has been shot, the true test of a hero is to forgive the perpetrator and get on with the healing that only forgiveness can provide.

We all have sores that have festered for years. I once met a woman who had pushed herself with such determination and vehemence that she wrested three doctoral degrees from some of the most highly acclaimed academic institutions of  our land, worked with such intensity to succeed that she made herself sick, only to realize that she was just on a quest to get her father to "love" her. If she had been taught the noble art of forgiveness, she could have lived a much simpler life and found a degree of happiness that no degree can afford. Proving that we are right seems easy when heinous crimes happen and we allow ourselves to claim the power of jury, judge and executioner, but in fact, these activities undermine us as much as they make us feel justified.

Hate, even when it seems justified and anger, even when it is based on valid reasons are the true enemy that we face daily. What we really need to detest is a system that allows a fellow with a degree in neuroscience to only be able to secure a job at McDonalds. What we should abhor is a "free market" in trading the tools of death. When I was a young adult, a female stalker threatened to kill me if I would not accept her "undying love". the city of Denver police told me that even though bulletproof vests were available in surplus stores, you needed a permit to purchase one. now, apparently, the shooter was able to get his without such a requirement. hundreds of pounds of ammunition and bomb making chemicals were delivered over a period of months, leaving a paper trail of intent to destroy, but everyone looked the other way.

These events are proof positive that there is no defense against a lone sociopath and we need to remember that we all created the scenario that led to a young man lashing out. then we need to forgive ourselves and ask what we could have done differently to affect a change in the world around us. For many, grace and enlightenment are the luxury of those who already have "it all", but the moment we are faced with a crisis, we slide back to the rhetoric of hate, the language of justified anger and the sword of "righteousness". After all, what better time to prove that we are "better people" when we can prove another to be inhumane, and deserving of our animosity. In the language of true heroes, forgiveness not only has the power to heal our own wounds, but the torment of others as well. The trials and tribulations that find us as we walk through life only have the power to cripple us if we let them. The discomforts and afflictions that are most heinous and despicable can easily prevent us from finding our higher self. Human history is replete with stories of vengeance and retribution, but the truest test of humankind is to confront these issues and to accept the full burden and responsibility for forgiving those who have done us wrong, however slight or intense their transgressions. If love is to flourish in the world, we need to understand the lightness of heart that true forgiveness holds for us all.

Many innocent loved ones have passed the veil at the hands of brutish men, but for those who loved them to be sucked up in a life-long vortex of hate and anger is an even greater tragedy. bless those who can find a way to forgive, for they are the true heroes. Think of what a world it would be if we simply honored this fact of life.

Namaste'

I honor the Light within you. When I was a child, this consciousness pervaded my spirit in a great torrent, love, love, love, love was the resonant frequency of my earliest childhood. When people wold say sexist, racist and mean things about others, it always unnerved me..."What turns their gaze away from the light?" The water we, of my breed, bear, is the touch of the sacred on the moisture in the very air. Our is to channel the forces of nature, from the most dissolute salts of thew oceans to the living biosphere that we call home. We profess a foil to all religion. Their mistake is to base their beliefs from a story, where the beginning can be surmised or guessed at. All that can follow is lies. Our new view sees the inevitable end of the story, the Sun will eventually subsume the inner planets when it supernovas. We will all be In The Light, eventually, why not now?

The countless traumas that became part of my "world view," some requiring healing after decades of pain and negative ego, self shame. The Lord and Lady both know, the most terrible wounding of a person is their belief in themselves. The labyrinth forces tearing at young innocence is daunting. In light of that alone, we need to be called to abide by higher standards. Inspiration flows not from a higher "being", but by being the change we wish to see in the world. Constant reflection on the God and Goddess operating through us. Each one of us is responsible for BE-ing as much as possible, a reflection of what we believe in. As much as this is requires ultimate freedom, it too requires ultimate responsibility.

In the moments that I look back on, I never regret a single decision that I made with my heart's knowledge of the universe unfolding as it should. The vaguest reflections of which have made me who I am. Triumph over adversity is intriguingly harder to recall than the moments when I was in the flow of humanity, groovin' as it were on the vibe. When your soul is healed by communion with another it is then that you can say you are rich in friends. Some count success by millions, but to others, being alive is the most sublime reward when spent doing what you love in the company of friends, sharing food and conversation with drinks and some shade. We are so busy, but I am thankful for you spending some time with me. (as best as I can translate.)

The God Particle

It seems reasonable to ask questions about the earliest beginnings of our universe. I get that. However, humans seem unable to handle the basic reality that confronts us and until we get a grip on the basics, dabbling in questions about the origins of the universe seems a bit like trying to learn how to cook by first making a souffle. When we learn to walk, first we crawl, but science has always allowed us to think we know before we even have a clue about what it is that we have just "discovered".  Even our terminology confounds our understanding. The far east is neither. The new world, same thing the dabbling we have done to this point into nuclear physics has yielded hazards beyond our comprehension and the "work" that so many scientists have done as well as the billions of dollars of "investment" into the nuclear age have yielded substances that will be dangerous through hundreds of generations, making certain areas on the planet inhospitable for life forever.

I have understood more deeply the fallacy of "scientific understanding" than I ever could explain, but since I first studied nuclear energy, I have seen the writing on the wall. Rich and powerful people have found a way to siphon off vast quantities of wealth for their own purposes. The more zeroes you add to the figures that represent the government subsidies, the more sacrosanct your activities become. The waste, fraud and abuse that takes place globally exponentially increases as the stakes rise. Simple, right? Not as simple as this. Who cares?

Say we do prove that the basic foundation of all religions is make believe. The origin of the universe was curious, I grant that, but the idea of understanding what went on that long ago has no use for today. Adding to the silliness of the whole undertaking is the fact that we are playing with a strange kind of battery technology that we cannot yet fathom. Like the nuclear energy complex, where we dig and rape the earth for rock that takes vast amounts of energy, we crush mountains to powder, concentrate the uranium ore, spending again, more energy. The process continues with more and more energy inputs through milling, "purification" and processing, concentrating the magic bullet, uranium. Eventually, after spending billions on tools and technology, we get to bleed of the energy that we put in with the added, and complicated problem of 60,000 years safe storage required to protect ourselves from the waste. We are doing similar things with the CERN and other colliders, superconducting or not. Pumping vast amounts of energy into events that last fractions of a second is again like stretching an infinitely long rubber band in the hopes of watching it snap back.

It seems to me that trying to re-create conditions that took place billions of years ago is a bit like burying the same dog for the rest of human history. With what we know already, the writing is on the wall, we just need to step back far enough to read it. Religion has been limping along for the better part of at least two centuries. The religion of science has caused as many problems as the esoteric religions of the past with one exception. Instead of claiming certain knowledge, science has admitted that it is only trying to understand what is. In the nuclear realm, our ability to understand has caused many times more grief than it has protected us from and nuclear physics seems to be doing the same thing, just a bit slower than the development of nuclear electric generating stations or the weapons of mass destruction that have been created from the "waste".

The reason that I put that in quotation marks is because it is waste of a new kind. I'm not even sure that the term is appropriate because in nearly the entire rest of the world, waste is just a resource for some other life form who uses it to thrive. In the case of nuclear waste, it not only remains dangerous for hundreds of centuries, but there seems to be no use for it, ever. Not for people, not for plants and not for any other life form on the planet. The deeper we look into the heart of the atom, the more ephemeral the particles become. The Higgs Boson might well have been "discovered", but whether or not it will feed anyone, love them or provide anything of use is yet to be proven. I'm expecting it to be about as life changing as the other sub-atomic particles that we have discovered. With a bit of luck, perhaps we can understand the dangers of the "new discovery" before anyone gets hurt. Understanding the history of science and technology makes it seem unlikely, but if we can put the superstitions of religion to bed forever, proving that peaceful loving people cause less harm to others than irate, angry and abusive ones, we may have a leg up to our eventual survival as a species. I'm sure we understand far less than we will need to to pull off a souffle, but if we end up with scrambled eggs, we can count ourselves blessed.
 

OPTING OUT OF THE SYSTEM

I don't ask for a dime of government money. I don't ask for government accreditation. I don't want to register my animals with a global positioning tattoo. I don't want to tell officials the names of my constituents. And I sure as the dickens don't intend to hand over my firearms. I can't even use the "U" word.

On every side, our paternalistic culture is tightening the noose around those of us who just want to opt out of the system-and it is the freedom to opt out that differentiates tyrannical and free societies.

How a culture deals with its misfits reveals its strength. The stronger the culture, the less it fears the radical fringe. The more paranoid and precarious a culture, the less tolerance it offers.

When faith in our freedom gives way to fear of our freedom, then silencing the minority view becomes the operative protocol The native Americans, silenced after Little Big Horn, simply wanted to worship in their beloved (and sacred) Black Hills, use traditional medicinal herbs to cure diseases, educate their children in the ways of their ancestors and live in portable homes rather than log cabins. By that time these people represented absolutely no threat to the continued westernization and domination of the North American continent by people who educated, located, medicated and habitated differently.

But coexistence was out of the question. Just like the forces that succeeded in making it illegal for me to use the "O" word, the Western success at wounded Knee quashed the little guy. What does the Organic Trade association have to fear from using the "O" word? If society reaaly wants government certification, my little market share will continue to deteriorate into oblivion. If, however, the certification effort represents a same-old, same-old power grab by the elite to exterminate the fringe play-ers, it is merely another example of fear replacing faith.

Faith in what? Faith in diversity. faith in each other. Faith in people's ability to self-educate, thereby making informed decisions. faith in seekers to find answers. Faith in marketplace dynamics to reward integrity and not cheating. Faith in creation to heal. Faith in healthy plants and animals to withstand epizootics. Faith in earthworms to increase fertility. Faith in communities to function efficiently and honorably without centralized, inside the beltway interference. Faith in Acres U.S.A. to arrive every month with a cornucopia of insight and information.

our culture's current fear of bioterrorism shows the glaring weakness of a centralized, immunodeficient food system. This weakness leads to fear. demanding from on high that we irradiate all food, register every cow with government agencies and hire more inspectors does not show strength, it shows fear.

Indeed, official policy views all of these minority production and marketing systems that have been proven faithful over the centuries to be instead things that threaten everyone and everything. As a tipi dwelling, herb healing, home educating, people loving, compost building retail farmer, I represent the real answers, but real answers need to be eradicated by those who seek to build their power and fortunes on a lie-the lie being that the genetic integrity can be maintained when corporate scientists begin splicing DNA. The lie that, as Charles Walters says, toxic rescue chemistry is better thasn a balanced biological path. The lie that farms are disease prone, unfriendly, inhumane places and should be zoned away from people.

Those of us who would aspire to opt out-both consumers and producers-must pray for enough cleverness to circumvent the system until the system can no longer sustain itself. Cycles happen. Because things are this way today does not mean they will be this way next year. Hurrah for that.

Often the greatest escapes occur at the moment the noose becomes the tightest. I'm feeling the rope, and it is not very loose. Society seems bound and determined to hang me for everything I want to do. but there is power in truth. And for sure, surprises are in store that may make society shake its collective head and begin to question some seemingly unalterable doctrines. Doctrines like the righteousness of the bureaucrat. The sanctity of government research. The protection of the Food Safety and inspection Service. The helpfulness of the USDA.

When the day comes, you and I can graciously offer our society honest food, honest ecology, honest stewardship. May the day come quickly. 



Joel Salatin raises grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, rabbits and more on a model diversified farmstead, Polyface Farm, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. This last installment of his original essay, originally printed in Acres Magazine, September 2003. Thanks to Joel and the folks at Polyface for continuing to fight the good fight and to labor in love for the betterment of the planet, her people, plants and creatures that are gifts of Creator. blessings to all who work for the next seven generations, their right to eat whole and healthy food, drink untainted water and breathe fresh clean air.

BUILD A HOUSE THE WAY I WANT

You would think that if i cut the trees, mill the logs into lumber and build a house on my own farm, I could make it however I wanted to. Think again. It is illegal to build a house lass than 900 square feet. Period. Doesn't matter if I'm a hermit or the father of twenty. The government agents have decreed, in their egocentric wisdom, that no human can live in anything less than 900 square feet. (about 100 square meters)

Our son got married last year and wanted to build a small cottage on the farm, which he now oversees for the most part. Our new saying is, "He runs the farm and I just run around." The plan was to do what Mom and Dad did for Teresa and I-trade houses when the children come. That way our empty nest downsizes, and the young people can up-size in the main family farmhouse. Sounds reasonable and environmentally sensitive to me. But no, his little honeymoon cottage-our retirement shack-had to be a 900 square foot Taj Mahal. a state-of-the-art, accredited composting toilet to avoid the need for a septic system and sewerage leach field was denied.

When the hillside leach field would not meet agronomic standards and we had to install in the floodplain, I asked the health department bureaucrat why. He said that, essentially, the only approveable leach fields now are alongside creeks and streams, because they are the only sites that offer dark-enough colored soils. Sounds like real environmental stewardship doesn't it?

 Look, if I want to build a yurt out of rabbit skins and go to the bathroom in a compost pile, why is it any of the government's business? Bureaucrats bend over backwards to accredit, tax credit and offer good money to people wanting to build pig city factories or bigger airports. But let a guy go to his woods, cut down some trees and let himself a home, and a plethora of regulatory tyrants descend on the project to complicate, obfuscate, irritate, frustrate and virtually terminate. I think it is time to eradicate some of these laws and the piranhas who administer them.

This has been the second to last installment from a longer article by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal... first published in Acres Magazine in September of 2003. The implications that this writing confronts are part of what has caused the seeds of the #occupy movement to gain strength. We have not only the right, but the responsibility to do our best and we cannot stand for government forces that keep us from reaching our potential. Moreover, the corporados and greedy thugs who have exerted their influence over the markets have strangled more wealth creation than they have provided. More on that, I am sure in just another week or so. I will be returning to this blog to post my own writings again after this coming Sunday.
 

EMPLOYING LOCAL YOUNGSTERS & INTERNS

Any power tool-including a cordless screwdriver-cannot be operated by people under age eighteen. We have lots of requests from folks wanting to come as interns, but what do we call them? The government has no category for interns or neighbor young people who just want to learn and help out.

We'd love to employ all the neighboring young people. To our child-owning and worshiping culture, the only appropriate child activity is recreation, sitting in a desk, or watching TV. That's it. That's the extent of what children are good for. anything else is abusive and risky.

Then we wonder why these kids grow up unmotivated and bored with life. Our local newspaper is full of articles and letters to the editor lamenting the lack of things for young people to do. Let me suggest a few things: diggin' post holes and building a fence, weeding the garden and planting some tomatoes, splitting some wood, feeding the chickens, washing eggs, pruning grape vines, milking the cow, building a compost pile, growing some earthworms.

These are all things that would be wonderfully meaningful work experience for the youth of our community, but you can't simply employ people any more. A host of government regulatory paperwork surrounds every "could you come over and help us...?" By the time the employer complies with every Occupational Safety & Health Administration requirement, posts every government bulletin requirement, with-holds taxes, and shoulders Unemployment Compensation burdens and medical and child safety regulations-he or she can't hire anybody legally or profitably.

The government has no pigeonhole for this; "I'm a 17-year-old home-schooler, and I want to learn how to farm. Could I come and have you mentor me for a year?

What is this relationship? A student? An employee? If I pay a stipend, the government says he's an employee. If I don't pay, the Fair Labor Standards board says it's slavery, which is illegal. Doesn't matter that the young person is here of his own volition and is happy to live in a tipi. housing must be permitted and up to code. Enough already. What happened to the home of the free?

Once again, I would like to thank Joel Salatin and thank him for these writings. He can be found through Polyface Farms. These writings are sub-headings within his "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal..." first published by Acres USA, in their magazine, Acres, in September 2003. Please share this information widely, act to reaffirm good sense in government and do not despair, We the People have both the right and the responsibility to change things for the better. This is the fourth of six installments from Joel and I will return to my own writing mid-month. Blessed Be and Namaste'