We've got a periodic table of the elements on our kitchen wall, but the one we talk about most is carbon. We taped a sample of it to the poster where it appears on the chart, a lump from the old water filter my daughter and I took apart a couple of months ago.
I'm getting an earful lately of carbon neutrality. There are a lot of quizzes out there about how much carbon you spew and how to reduce it.
We're going through the Low Carbon Diet workbook from the Empowerment Institute, step by step,
and I'm doing the Slate Green Challenge currently in progress.
Just signed up for DriveNeutral. This is a way of offsetting your annual car emissions, which is a good idea if you can't afford a hybrid yet, which is what we've decided for the moment. We also do our best to drive as little as possible.
DriveNeutral, begun by the Presidio School of Management, a sustainability-oriented business school, allows individuals to be part of the carbon trading program of the Chicago Carbon Exchange. Basically, it means that even though we should stop doing almost everything we do in order to reduce carbon, the realists know that this ain't gonna happen, so they're doing all they can to balance the offenses with positive steps taken by businesses into what Hunter Lovins calls the "integrated bottom line," meaning that companies profits are maximized and longevities increased when they care about the planet their employees tread upon.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The End of The End - SPOILER ALERT!
If you intend to read The End, and wish not to know anything of it in advance, please read no further.
However, I finished it in the early hours of this morning, and want to share my favorite moment, from page 297, where we get to the bitter apple core of the story, the radical horseradish root of the orphans' journey:
"We are respecting our parents' wishes," Violet said, hoisting the apples as high as she could. "They didn't want to shelter us from the world's treacheries. They wanted us to survive them."
How glad I was, and how moved, to see Daniel Handler thus fulfill the promise of his series. As it was all along, it's about family, truth, love, and difficult, even impossible, choices. The mystery we've been waiting to see unravelled is the mystery of how to properly parent, even after death. Children and innocence, Eden and knowledge, treachery and survival... In the end, it's about allowing grief, and the Baudelaires finally cry, "letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all the tears in history. Kit and the children let their sadness join the sadness of the world, and cried for all the people who were lost to them."
My Uncle Don died yesterday, and having talked to my aunt and my cousin on the phone, and having listened to their cheery front and their self-professed Scottish resilience, and also my aunt's regret that she hadn't been with him at the moment of his death, and having awakened too early, in the dark, feeling sad, not only at his passing but because our family will not gather until next summer to honor him, I found the above passage comforting. Cry, and then, "We have to go on," Violet said. But don't leave out the crying, or quell it.
In the end, we're all in the same boat, with the same faulty moral compass, washing up on the same shores, followed by our garbage. I am glad my son took away from this series the image of the children as they sail back toward society, none of them too optimistic, but not without hope.
However, I finished it in the early hours of this morning, and want to share my favorite moment, from page 297, where we get to the bitter apple core of the story, the radical horseradish root of the orphans' journey:
"We are respecting our parents' wishes," Violet said, hoisting the apples as high as she could. "They didn't want to shelter us from the world's treacheries. They wanted us to survive them."
How glad I was, and how moved, to see Daniel Handler thus fulfill the promise of his series. As it was all along, it's about family, truth, love, and difficult, even impossible, choices. The mystery we've been waiting to see unravelled is the mystery of how to properly parent, even after death. Children and innocence, Eden and knowledge, treachery and survival... In the end, it's about allowing grief, and the Baudelaires finally cry, "letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all the tears in history. Kit and the children let their sadness join the sadness of the world, and cried for all the people who were lost to them."
My Uncle Don died yesterday, and having talked to my aunt and my cousin on the phone, and having listened to their cheery front and their self-professed Scottish resilience, and also my aunt's regret that she hadn't been with him at the moment of his death, and having awakened too early, in the dark, feeling sad, not only at his passing but because our family will not gather until next summer to honor him, I found the above passage comforting. Cry, and then, "We have to go on," Violet said. But don't leave out the crying, or quell it.
In the end, we're all in the same boat, with the same faulty moral compass, washing up on the same shores, followed by our garbage. I am glad my son took away from this series the image of the children as they sail back toward society, none of them too optimistic, but not without hope.
From the Middle Passage to the Railroad Underground
Two events this week had our family thinking about the journey into slavery and the journey to freedom.
The Amistad, a replica of the schooner on which a group of Mende Africans from Sierra Leone revolted and ultimately won their freedom in a U.S. Supreme Court case argued by John Quincy Adams, docked in Kingston. We and dozens of other visitors were invited to board the schooner and go below deck to view the cramped quarters where the Mende people were being transported to a Spanish plantation in Cuba when Sengbe Pieh used a nail to force open his shackles and led a revolt that ultimately helped galvanize the abolitionist movement. The details of the story can be read at the Amistad site. If the Amistad sails to your town, go. My kids enjoyed standing at the helm like Jack Sparrow, and learning that the Black Pearl (built around a 109-ft-ship for the second Pirates movie) was not so much bigger than the Amistad (129 feet from bowsprit to end of boom, slightly larger than the original). A beautiful ship, a painful and inspiring story.
Last night we heard a talk by Fergus Bordewich, historian and author of Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. He focused on discussing how the Underground Railroad worked in the Hudson Valley, and we learned a lot we didn't know, for instance, that people came upriver by boat, because:
1- it was quicker
2- they weren't likely to be pursued by boat
3- the communities along the lower parts of the river were hostile.
Once north, Bordewich stressed, fugitives were greeted by an above-ground interracial social movement eager to advance the cause of abolitionism. One of the key points of the talk was that we think of the railroad as much more secretive as it was, of African-Americans as much more victimized and at the mercy of white railroad leaders than was true (there were many black leaders working in the URR, Harriet Tubman being only one example made popular by her having been interviewed so many times). Bordewich said that the history of the Underground Railroad is more complex and interesting than it has been presented to us in school etc. (no big mystery there! (see Lies My Teacher Told Me and Lies Across America by James Lowen, favorites around here).
Bordewich debunked other URR myths as well. In particular, I asked him about codes—spies and codes being a household interest around here—and mentioned a book my daughter and I had read about African-American 'show-way' quilts containing coded maps to the north. No evidence exists for this, Bordewich said, and an internet search reveals this as a contentious topic. Here's one site about it. As so often happens, I was grateful that my kids are studying history out here in the world with the people "doing" history, delving into primary sources.
He also talked about the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd", but I'm going to have to do some poking around and ask my sister the ethnomusicologist before I write more about that one.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Retrofit Your Mind
Got up early to write and instead watched Bill Moyers' Is God Green? (viewable online). I have mixed feelings about a powerful new voting block of anti-reproductive freedom, anti-gay rights environmentalists, but I'd be wrong to say it isn't a good thing that evangelicals are fighting the coal industry in West Virginia and planting trees in Idaho.
After breakfast it was time to insulate.
I do this job each fall with varying degrees of commitment. Rope caulk hurts my fingers. I have to press hard to get it into the window cracks. VInyl foam insulation, which is fairly effective but, well, made of vinyl, has a sticky side that will leave ugly remains when I pull it off in spring. It's supposed to work for three years, but who wants their windows sealed in the summer? Some windows I will try covering with plastic this year.
We have thought of living upstairs for the winter,
of unbuilding the back half of our house,
of building a second, better insulated house inside our current "envelope."
We've considered the merits and disadvantages, possibilities and impossibilities of solar, geothermal, little electric heaters spread throughout the house, doors and curtains on every room. This year we're going to make some changes. It's RETROFIT TIME!
Sometimes I think about my years spent in New York City, in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, where my apartments were always so overheated that I kept my windows open in the winter and wore shorts and a tank top in January. I did not own wool socks or long underwear until I moved up-Hudson. I picture those millions of city windows open, letting out the heat produced by burning oil, and I feel fatigue and despair at my lack of efficacy, trying to save a few dozen gallons of oil, but then again I know we are all in the same boat, and we'll be toting caulk and jars of tar around the decks for the rest of our lives trying to stay the leaks, or... our lives and dwellings will change radically. Just how radically, at least for this 1850 Victorian (know how many windows I have?—neither do I), is still unknown, but I'm not ready to abandon ship.
After breakfast it was time to insulate.
I do this job each fall with varying degrees of commitment. Rope caulk hurts my fingers. I have to press hard to get it into the window cracks. VInyl foam insulation, which is fairly effective but, well, made of vinyl, has a sticky side that will leave ugly remains when I pull it off in spring. It's supposed to work for three years, but who wants their windows sealed in the summer? Some windows I will try covering with plastic this year.
We have thought of living upstairs for the winter,
of unbuilding the back half of our house,
of building a second, better insulated house inside our current "envelope."
We've considered the merits and disadvantages, possibilities and impossibilities of solar, geothermal, little electric heaters spread throughout the house, doors and curtains on every room. This year we're going to make some changes. It's RETROFIT TIME!
Sometimes I think about my years spent in New York City, in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, where my apartments were always so overheated that I kept my windows open in the winter and wore shorts and a tank top in January. I did not own wool socks or long underwear until I moved up-Hudson. I picture those millions of city windows open, letting out the heat produced by burning oil, and I feel fatigue and despair at my lack of efficacy, trying to save a few dozen gallons of oil, but then again I know we are all in the same boat, and we'll be toting caulk and jars of tar around the decks for the rest of our lives trying to stay the leaks, or... our lives and dwellings will change radically. Just how radically, at least for this 1850 Victorian (know how many windows I have?—neither do I), is still unknown, but I'm not ready to abandon ship.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Less is More
The fam attended an inspiring conference this weekend organized by Sustainable Hudson Valley and "dedicated to the memory of urban visionary Jane Jacobs and sustainability pioneer Donnella Meadows", called Cool Communities, Living Economies. Lots of good links to explore at Sustainable Hudson Valley, and lots of potential for this area to transform itself into a cleaner, more vibrant, healthier place.
The keynote speaker, Hunter Lovins, preaches a vigorous gospel of environmental accountability and prosperity she calls Natural Capitalism. A really inspiring lecture that left me wishing my town were more like Curitiba, Brazil, which has an effective bus system and manages to combine sustainability with service to its most impoverished citizens.
David Gershon of the Empowerment Institute talked about the Low Carbon Diet Climate Change program, some of which is online and includes a basic carbon footprint calculator for those who have never been sobered by one.
On a related note, here's a big plug for a blog that tracks wise solutions to environmental problems, such as the Roundabout playpump in South Africa that works on kid power:
World Changing
There's plenty of good news out there, let's make some more...
The keynote speaker, Hunter Lovins, preaches a vigorous gospel of environmental accountability and prosperity she calls Natural Capitalism. A really inspiring lecture that left me wishing my town were more like Curitiba, Brazil, which has an effective bus system and manages to combine sustainability with service to its most impoverished citizens.
David Gershon of the Empowerment Institute talked about the Low Carbon Diet Climate Change program, some of which is online and includes a basic carbon footprint calculator for those who have never been sobered by one.
On a related note, here's a big plug for a blog that tracks wise solutions to environmental problems, such as the Roundabout playpump in South Africa that works on kid power:
World Changing
There's plenty of good news out there, let's make some more...
The End
A Pleasureless Party
We celebrated the final installment of A Series of Unfortunate Events with some friends who have been following the books. Featuring a menu taken from various volumes (Pasta Puttanesca of course, Parsley Soda, Aqueous Martinis, Mango/Black Bean Salad, Aunt Josephine's Chilled and Chapfallen Cucumber Soup and a Quaff-the-Bitter-Cup Coconut Cream Cake inspired by Uncle Monty), a magnet fishing game for Stricken Salmon, and a Dewey Decimal hunt borrowed from The Penultimate Peril's Hotel Denouement.
That's me as Esme Squalor & DH as, of course, Count Olaf (at times he looked a bit like Abe Lincoln), wearing makeup from the Metropolitan Opera designed for my brother, who was an absentee Count Olaf due to severe back pain.
An abymal time was had by all.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
The Joys of Fermentation
I discovered kombucha. First I bought it at a health store, not really thinking about what it is, to drink with my lunch. I said to my kids, "This stuff is weird. It tastes like apple cider vinegar. Try it."
"Yuck," they said. "It's awful."
By the end of the bottle I was in love with it. I posted to a homeschooling list asking if anyone had a culture to give me—the "mother" as it's called. A friend gave me one and I'm on my third batch now. My favorite way to drink it is with a squeeze of lime. It's unbelievable.
According to this great book I'm reading, Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice, all the kombucha mothers out there can be traced to one great mother-of-them-all. That's cool. The health claims for it are endless. I find it gives me energy. "Probably because of the caffeine," a friend told me (it's made by preparing black, green or white tea with sugar and then allowing the culture to ferment in it for a period of days). But I get more caffeine from a day's pot of tea, and it neither keeps me awake nor do I get a headache if I stop drinking it, nor does it give me the energy of several ounces of kombucha drunk over the period of a day.
My son is telling me, reading over my shoulder, that I should say that the mother makes a baby culture each time you brew up a batch, and you can pass these to friends, brew more of your own, use them as sponges, all kinds of strange things.
From another homeschooling mother I got the culture required to make kefir and found it is no big deal to make, just soak the kefir blobs in milk overnight, so now my kids can have homemade goat milk kefir shakes every day.
Full Moon Feast has a whole section on home brewing and the tradition of the ale-wife that is fascinating, a topic also taken up by Sally Fallon in her book Nourishing Traditions.
From Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice:
My European ancestors drank their gardens as well. The brewed mildly fermented beverages from the herbs that they grew or gathered from the wild areas surrounding the villages. Those drinks were the healthy precursors to today's ubiquitous sweet, tangy bubbly beverages—soft drinks, colas, sodas, carbonated juice mixtures, sweetened iced teas, and flavored bubbly waters. But today's sweet bubbly products are the toxic mimics of our ancestors' lacto-fermented drinks. They lack enzymes, minerals, or beneficial bacteria, and are high in sugar, caffeine, chemicals, and artificial ingredients. Root beer and ginger ale are two familiar sodas that were, once upon a time, traditionally fermented herbal ales, but lost most of their goodness when they entered modern commerce. What our ancestors drank was the real real thing.
I can't find the quote now, but I think somewhere in her book Prentice conjectures that our craving for soda and alcohol harkens back to our ancestors' consumption of herbal tonics and small beers that were more nourishing than inebriating. Interesting. Anyway, buy the book, so I don't have to feel guilty about quoting at length from it.
From Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon:
The day when every town in America produces its own distinctive lactofermented brew, made from the local products of woods and fields, will be the day when Americans see the dawning of a new age of good health and well-being, as well as a new era of economic vitality based on small-scale production rather than on large-scale monopolistic control of the food-processing industry.
Sing it, sisters!
"Yuck," they said. "It's awful."
By the end of the bottle I was in love with it. I posted to a homeschooling list asking if anyone had a culture to give me—the "mother" as it's called. A friend gave me one and I'm on my third batch now. My favorite way to drink it is with a squeeze of lime. It's unbelievable.
According to this great book I'm reading, Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice, all the kombucha mothers out there can be traced to one great mother-of-them-all. That's cool. The health claims for it are endless. I find it gives me energy. "Probably because of the caffeine," a friend told me (it's made by preparing black, green or white tea with sugar and then allowing the culture to ferment in it for a period of days). But I get more caffeine from a day's pot of tea, and it neither keeps me awake nor do I get a headache if I stop drinking it, nor does it give me the energy of several ounces of kombucha drunk over the period of a day.
My son is telling me, reading over my shoulder, that I should say that the mother makes a baby culture each time you brew up a batch, and you can pass these to friends, brew more of your own, use them as sponges, all kinds of strange things.
From another homeschooling mother I got the culture required to make kefir and found it is no big deal to make, just soak the kefir blobs in milk overnight, so now my kids can have homemade goat milk kefir shakes every day.
Full Moon Feast has a whole section on home brewing and the tradition of the ale-wife that is fascinating, a topic also taken up by Sally Fallon in her book Nourishing Traditions.
From Full Moon Feast by Jessica Prentice:
My European ancestors drank their gardens as well. The brewed mildly fermented beverages from the herbs that they grew or gathered from the wild areas surrounding the villages. Those drinks were the healthy precursors to today's ubiquitous sweet, tangy bubbly beverages—soft drinks, colas, sodas, carbonated juice mixtures, sweetened iced teas, and flavored bubbly waters. But today's sweet bubbly products are the toxic mimics of our ancestors' lacto-fermented drinks. They lack enzymes, minerals, or beneficial bacteria, and are high in sugar, caffeine, chemicals, and artificial ingredients. Root beer and ginger ale are two familiar sodas that were, once upon a time, traditionally fermented herbal ales, but lost most of their goodness when they entered modern commerce. What our ancestors drank was the real real thing.
I can't find the quote now, but I think somewhere in her book Prentice conjectures that our craving for soda and alcohol harkens back to our ancestors' consumption of herbal tonics and small beers that were more nourishing than inebriating. Interesting. Anyway, buy the book, so I don't have to feel guilty about quoting at length from it.
From Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon:
The day when every town in America produces its own distinctive lactofermented brew, made from the local products of woods and fields, will be the day when Americans see the dawning of a new age of good health and well-being, as well as a new era of economic vitality based on small-scale production rather than on large-scale monopolistic control of the food-processing industry.
Sing it, sisters!
A literary tag game from Udge
The Rules of this tag game are:
1. Grab the book nearest to you...no cheating!
2. Open to page 123.
3. Scroll down to the fifth sentence.
4. Post text of next 3 sentences on to your blog
I am taking the time to do this because the nearest book was a good one.
"'So you see nothing will be lost if we take on the post, and a great deal if we refuse it; above all, if you don't wring something out of the Castle this very day, you'll never manage to find, even for yourself, anywhere at all in the village to spend the night in, anywhere, that is, which I needn't be ashamed of as your future wife. And if you don't manage to find a roof for the night, do you really expect me to sleep here in my warm room, while I know that you are wandering about out there in the dark and cold?' K., who had been trying to warm himself all this time by clapping his chest with his arms like a carter, said: 'Then there's nothing left but to accept; come along!'"
The Castle, obviously, by Franz Kafka
1. Grab the book nearest to you...no cheating!
2. Open to page 123.
3. Scroll down to the fifth sentence.
4. Post text of next 3 sentences on to your blog
I am taking the time to do this because the nearest book was a good one.
"'So you see nothing will be lost if we take on the post, and a great deal if we refuse it; above all, if you don't wring something out of the Castle this very day, you'll never manage to find, even for yourself, anywhere at all in the village to spend the night in, anywhere, that is, which I needn't be ashamed of as your future wife. And if you don't manage to find a roof for the night, do you really expect me to sleep here in my warm room, while I know that you are wandering about out there in the dark and cold?' K., who had been trying to warm himself all this time by clapping his chest with his arms like a carter, said: 'Then there's nothing left but to accept; come along!'"
The Castle, obviously, by Franz Kafka
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