goodbye fall

The brisk whether seems to have moved in for good. Although who knows, the temperatures have been known to wildly fluctuate throughout December and sometimes into January, before the blistering month of February rejects all warm fronts. The waves pile high on the beach in majestic icicle form, proof of all the states of matter theories. The old windows have either cracked away from their frames more, of the cold has just found a better way through the existing holes. Ice now builds up on the insides of the window where it can't help but precipitate from the cold air outside. The couch had to be moved away from the window for the sake of our warmth. The vents are already closed becuase they inherently omit cigarette smoke, especially in the mornings. House, keep us warm through these cold winter nights.

Does Class Room Dissection Deplete Species?

Go

power strike ligths deep into the night on the streets of Philly days to lay and sleep in the shade of those smoke clouds blowing loud from shallow rocky waters that I taught her how to fish.

weeping low below the lights in a cold hospital room, shining neon across faces and white blankets. lonely tears and fears of being alone.

tomorrow blows slow from the south, just walk down to the station and look for the rooster perched upon the west barn. the key's in his beak and the password is go.

greeny-blues

steelworker gates hang

from /taught/ ropes
on the slopes of Euripides' palace.

s.nake fountain dream.s

wriggle and squirm
to the tilt of a mason-jar

moustache painted green.

Space Balls Ecocide

This hilarious satire of all movies of the outer-space genre offers an interesting example of topic of war and the environment. The Space Balls attack the planet of Druidia in order to get their fresh air to sustain the Space Ball planet, while killing the Druidians. When the air is being sucked out of their enclosing bubble the snow is taken off the mountains and the trees are ripped one by one out of the ground. The Space Balls are essentially committing an ecocide. I wonder if this is intentionally satirizing the way in which humans wage war on a person's environment.

Environmental Lapse

Bound to the card table for 3 days by demanding and intriguing research. The outdoors have become foreign. Is it the cold? Or is it the hermit calling we all feel at this time of the year. "What kind of wildlife did everyone see over break" he asked in a compelling tone. My computer screen, I thought, slumping further down in my chair. Something like shame overcame my body when I realized just how much I had neglected the most loyal solitude. Perhaps there is a psychological tie to my equally neglectful attitude towards my blog for the past few days... Ugh.

Envrinonmental Alliances

The U.S.-India climate 'partnership'

Obama is applying his slow-pace strategy to climate change as well--something most people have trouble trusting as a getting-it-done strategy. But, regardless, he is taking strides in becoming involved in initiatives that might be more productive than Copenhagen. This partnership with India is, if nothing else, a good image of the agreement between developed and developing countries to work together and not hold environmental grudges. Working together is clearly the key here and it is nice to see these kinds of alliances being made. The next step is to see if anything comes of them, and if there is enough time for this slow-pace approach, not that there is any other way to do it really...

A day full of...

turkey dinners. But where do all the turkeys come from? I ate with two different families and had nearly identical food at each meal. Not only am I wondering where all the turkeys are coming from, but I am now baffled by the quantities of sweet potatoes, marshmallows, canned pumpkin, instant stuffing and canned cranberries. Where is it all coming from?

Still waiting

on the sun.

Gorilla Gardening

The art of gardening in unexpected places has a certain artistic appeal, much like the postmodern themes we spoke of in class today. Interesting that the postmodern is always associated with the urban and here there is an image of a garden within this old... something. Maybe an old food display case--for baked goods perhaps? I'm not even sure because now it is only a garden. The flowers seem like they are there almost by mistake. I especially like how the contraption is littered with posters and stickers. It seems that much more urban to have become subject to the advertising powers and menaces of the city. I wonder if it just closes up when it gets cold? I wonder who maintains such a lone-standing piece of art? It's very mysterious to me, like a surprise waiting for you on the street corner. Don't walk too fast or you might miss it because it blends in so nicely with newspaper stands and the like. What a brilliant accessory on a gray street corner.

Top 25 Reasons to Give a Damn About Climate Change-- Video

Super Models Take It Off For Climate Change

An interesting marketing scheme. Apparently, sex sells. I wonder what the reactions to this kind of advertising might be. Could this actually make the deniers change their minds? Is sex that persuasive, or is this just a chance for supermodels to get the green on their resume? Frankly I'm a little tired of the green marketing world and I find it to be quite discouraging. I see it as a kind of step down from the true cause, making people believe and act for a interesting interpretation of whatever the truth might be.

Some Food Fiction

A lunch parody

Check this out. Creative. Eerily familiar. The beginning put me in a Gulliverish mindet that I couldn't snap out of. From there it unfolded.

Rainy day poem

Blue slacks on a gray
canvas make the afternoon
pass quite quickly

take a library walk and
we can talk about
the Casablanca paper

look both ways and cross
the street and sneak
through the back yard,
but be sure to take a peak
at the pumpkins

meet me in the lobby
by the sycamore tree,
and don't drag your feet.

Bill McKibben in the news

Is Bill McKibben right to be angry with Obama?

A reaffirmation of the my questioning of McKibben's cause. Yes, I aggree with the bigger picture, but the approach seems a little wobbly. David Roberts, the author of this article gently puts McKibben in his place, who is upset that Health Care reform has been made the first initiave in Congress, by saying that Obama is not where the blame should be. He goes on to point a few fingers, namely democratic senators who are pushing the health care bills. With reform on the horizon, or so the picture has been painted, climate change bills are still getting their feet under them. If McKibben were presented with the option of either providing insurance for how ever many millions of citizens don't have health care or saving the environment, I wonder which he would actually chose? However, the point is that the President, regardless of the title, doens't really get to chose.

Some Yeats for the night

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death I KNOW that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,	5
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,	10
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind	15
In balance with this life, this death.

I think I grew to love this poem today. I can't get beyond the brilliance of the balance.

My apple was too red

I stood at the counter, waiting to check out a few movies, still half an hour to spare until the library closed for the night. I brought the apple in my hand to my mouth and heard a crunch just as I had almost began to walk away before realizing I had left my library card on the front desk.
A man with keys hanging from his pocket pointed to my table and plainly stated, "there's no food in here."
"Oh," I said with a full mouth, "sorry."
"Really?" Sarah said, a hint of attitude in her tone.
"Yup, the sign is right on the door as you're walking in" the man with the keys reassured her.
I shrugged and we turned to leave, shaking off the feeling of the place which was rich with that snappiness of Lake Forest. As we walked out the door I examined the bite in my apple more closely, finally realizing that the things innards were an odd shade of red. The waxy, and apparently painted outside had somehow seeped through the membrane and straight to core. I cracked it open on the top of a fence spike just to be sure the dye had indeed saturated the entire fruit. My snack had been ruined twice over, and in just minutes. What do they paint those things with anyways?

The price of diamonds

Diamonds have proven, time and time again, to be wonderfully lootable resources when the underdogs are looking for a comeback. From the bushwars in Angola, to the rural villages of Sierra Leone, and more recently it is suspected that Al Qaeda has descovered the quick and easy cash they can provide. Throughout Africa secondary diamonds can be found in fairly accessible places. At the bottoms of rivers, the sandy shores of the ocean, just twenty feet underground. Men risk their lives diving into rivers, breathing CO2 through a compressor hose. Thousands of pounds of dirt or sand is removed so seives can do that more particular work. Water tables are exposed and disrupted. Men, and the boys who aren't quite there yet, have dug at gunpoint, or for outrageously low wages, hardly enough to sustain one man, let alone a family. Agricultural fields have turned to dust, worthless in the homogenous economy.

Mountaintop Mining

"And if Appalachia is America under an X-Ray, then mountaintop removal is the centerpiece of that X-Ray. A distillation. A bald apocalyptic vision of what has gone horribly wrong in our culture, but that is in most other contexts more hidden, more subtle. In the obliteration of the Appalachians, the oldest mountain range in the world, we see, concretely, unambiguously, the exposure of profit-making without accountability. Of corporate control over democracy. Of the energy war right here on our own soil, the fallout of our careless overconsumption."
-Ann Pancake, author of Strange as the Weather Has Been, a novel about mountaintop mining in the Appalachians.

It depresses me to think this is a standing issue in North America. Pancake states that many judges are still torn or unsure as to whether it is actually illegal, yet mountaintop mining continues to endanger, if not ruin, the lives of so many people that live in the Appalachians, the oldest mountain range in the world. She has been writing about the issue for ten years and has received nothing but resistance from governments and "disobedient" civilians. Pancake states plainly that in all the struggles she faces trying to make people care about the destruction of the place she calls home, the one thing that gives her optimism is the number of people in their late teens and twenties who have passionately devoted themselves to fighting for more sustainable ways of living. Many of the environmental writers of her generation seem to face this same problem. Why is it that their peers won't take their side for once, and they are forced to find allies among the younger generations, many of whom don't have many resources besides brains, patience and determination.

Geurrilla Gardening

http://www.grist.org/article/the-new-wave-of-urban-farming-how-to-get-fresh-food-from-small-spaces/

So many creative ideas about how to grow your own food. I am so tempted to just go buy a bunch of seeds right now and turn the space in front of my big window into a garden. A trough would be the coolest I think. All I have now is a sad little rasta plant, planted in a mug.

rewrite

tangled waste,
buoyed beyond the current's lines,
wrapped around an invisible pole,
spinning until
it sinks

a gray rainbow with no
sharp corners,
but imperfect edges
that blend

Nonsensical cohesion.

a multimedia junk pile

until the end,
it spins, it spins, it spins.

tangled waste,
buoyed beyond the current's
lines, wrapped around an
invisible pole, spinning until
it sinks

a gray rainbow with no
sharp corners,
but imperfect edges
that blend

It's nonsensical cohesion.

a multimedia junk pile,
acquiring real life in time,
like robots with feelings

it spins until
the end,
it spins, it spins, it spins.

Ecocrticism

An ecocritic, Glen Love, says the problem with environmentalists in the humanities is their lack of understanding in the fields of the sciences. And yet, many will not miss an opportunity to criticize the sciences for being based in reductionism. He encourages the people of the humanities to mingle with their science counterparts of the academy, and assures us they will probably know more about literature than we know about science. Love opposes the worlds of science and the humanities to a somewhat extreme extent in order to make his point about the need for interdiscplinary action for environmental movements. How can we properly perform an ecocrtique without scientific knowledge of the environment within the literature? While the science used to scare me, because I decided long ago I was not "good" at them, I have begun to thoroughly enjoy them because they offer another facet through which to look at things. While I may prefer to qualitatively observe things and write freely about them, there are great rewards in understanding the other side of the story as well. And, as a mostly humantities-driven person, a good grade in a science class is almost more rewarding.

Grand Opening

Downtown Lake Forest has new streets (and sidewalks...)! The citizens of Lake Forest were united today by the grand opening of the new downtown streets. People drove freely through downtown to get to any number of destinations. A DJ and the local country radio station contradicted each other like troubadours on opposing corners. People walked down the new white sidewalks to inspect the job done. Twenty-foot-tall santas flapped before their faces, welcoming cars to their parking spots. I thought the end of construction would make it easier for bike riding downtown but I realize that the street is still out of the question while the signs on the side walk demand bike-walking.

The wave

I walked to the beach today after my only class to give myself a break before a sat down for hours of grueling research. I gather leaves and tried to light a fire in one of the stone fireplaces just to set the mood of my study break. An amiable fire blazed for about a minute before the wind found its way under the logs. The waves proved to be a spectacle worth walking for so I made my way to the waterside. I stood in the sand and sunk in an odd way because of my shoes but ignored the uncanny feeling. I became mesmerized by the spray of the waves on the man-made rock jetty. I fantasized about buying a wetsuit so I could swim in the water all year like the man who swims laps in a black hood through November. He can't be younger than sixty and stands high on my list of respects for pure, untainted athleticism. I wonder the dent one of those suits would put in my grocery money? These are the times I wish bartering were acceptable as an equal means to money. But then, I guess I don't have much to barter with that isn't the dwindling figures in my bank account. I wanted so desperately to remove my socks and shoes and just feel the wet sand that appeared to be sucked dry of water with every recession of a wave. A gust of wind found my wandering mind and lead me back up the hill to the library where I belong.

Hello Sun

When the sun is finally there, I can barely find it. Too many things have bogged down my mind, and deeper, and everything fades to the dull color of winter. A lifetime is ended by one meeting in court and half a semester is reduced to an "exercise." My thoughts have been muddled by distress I can't seem to help. The mornings come sooner and the nights are prolonged by the glare of this screen and that sees what I can't.

link

US vs CHINA

US VS CHINA

I feel like this tug-of-war will never end. Everyday there is a new article from one side or the other. It's just another way to foster competition. When will the competition become productive? When will we compete to be the first ones to make changes.

Until then, apocalypse now.

Nazi Agrarian Ideals

I recently read about an interesting aspect to the Nazi regime that I had never heard or read about prior. Part of the idea behind socialism for Germany was to build a self-sustaining state. Since Germany's food supply was severely tampered with during World War I by the ally forces, they were aiming to become self-sufficient in their food production. As a result, a man named Darre created a new section of government dedicated to created a new "peasant" class in which the term was glorified to ensure the importance of their job. There were a slew of processes a person had to endure to gain this new title, and having a pure bloodline was, needless to say, one of the standards. The rural people who did not recieve this title were maintained their title of farmer. Those people who did gain the title were subject to approximately one new farming standard, or law, every three days in the year of 1934. Agriculture was centralized to the point of inconvenience for farmers who had to sell their crops to government run centers as opposed to selling them to their local markets. The prices of food who controlled instead of allowed the free fluctuations of supply and demand and as a result the urban industrial workers suffered low wages and overpopulation becuase the government couldn't raise their wages, or the price of food would have to change. This problem became more apparent after the amazing agricultural production year or 1935. The country was faced with drought in the following years and productions dropped and the new peasants began to lose faith in this new system as they realized they were getting the short end of the stick.

Too bad for bikes

French Ideal of Bicycle-Sharing Meets Reality

People are taking advantage of this ideal and selling shared bikes on the black market. Will the same thing happen if this trend catches on with cars?

Pumpkins

We dressed in black and walked into the night without looking back. The rain was just a drizzle and a black hood kept me dry as we marched through the dark in search of shiny orange pumpkins. The seeds are my meat and to salt them and bake them is more a treat than the banana bread I got in the mail from a far away place. Where do those banana's come from anyways? Costa Rica? I hear that students grow them on a university farm. But I digress. All I can do is look up pumpkin recipes but I fear that my newly acquired thirty pound pumping may not be what the recipes are calling for.

Fallen Leaves

This is the season when multicolor maple leaves lead me home. Fallen from the undressed trees, they now pad my pathway. Across streets, over sidewalks, and through the church parking lot. A yellow-amber carpet cushions the rubber of my road bike. When the wind blows from the lake, leaves rain on my head. The flat, moist ones spiral downward, while the dried, crumpled ones have a more mundane plunge to the ground. I can not longer see the cracks in the sidewalk so I can't dodge the big ones, instead my legs burn as I balance above the seat, saving my womanhood. Steer clear of wet leaves, they could be hiding puddles, and if not they're still a trap of moisture. My nineties breaks don't like the rain.

Chicago River

Chicago River Reversal Map

The diversion of the river is shocking. It is hard to believe that the Chicago River used to be a cest pool to the extent of needing to find an alternative to letting it run into the lake. While the Chicago Plan boasts about plans for the beautification of the waterfront, there isn't much mention of the state in which Lake Michigan finds itself during this whole process. Perhaps part of the diversion plan for the river did indeed have the state of the lake in mind and perhaps it was already in such a state that the river simply HAD to be diverted. Another interesting fact is that the tradition of dying the river green for St Patricks day orginited when a group of plumbers flourescine dye to trace illegal substances that were polluting the river. The majic that dyes the river today is kept secret but it must be better for the water than the flourescine, but there is no guarantee. The Chicagans can't be bothered with these effects since the river doesn't even run into their beach anymore.

Demineurs

Les demineurs are the designated deminers employed by a private sector of the french government. The existence of their jobs is left ambiguous because the work is often too dangerous to admit to. They scrounge the French forests in search of te left overs of the world wars. Surpsingly the first world war was the biggest culprit, as France still had power then, before all their farms and land was blow the bits. Decades later and the copper-line mines are still out there and who knows how many still haven't popped. The demineurs take it upon themselves to scope out the ticking bombs and rescue them from their environments upon which they intrude. Local villagers and farmers call their mayors to report mysteriuos metals and demineurs get more scratchy calls on their radio for help in a farm field. They have all known victims and they continue to unknowingly offer themselves up to firey ends.

Farm Pets

Farm animals caged in by mundane cement walls. Men sweep dirt and hay beneath the horses hooves who march in an endless circle. Chickens and goats bare the cold to eat food pebbles out of small hands, but no children are near. The pony horses' heads hang low, their eyes still and empty. They have blankets on their back, but not for their own benefit but to pad the soft thighs of a momentary rider. The cheese people wanted to make their imported fromages appear more "organic." Farm pets are the closest thing to the farms in Norther France where the brie comes from. The absurdity of the inference makes me glad that the animals were deserted.

Field Trip

The morning train is refreshing although I wonder if I would feel that way if I were a commuter, taking the train to the same end every day. As of now it exists mostly for a recreational purpose. I imagine the difference could be quite dramatic although I hope that I can always enjoy the oddity of public transportation, no matter its purpose in my life. The man next to me in beat up white Reeboks sipped green canned beer and listened to her personal music pod.

evening wind

The wind is rapping on the windows, or is it the leaves, rain and branches? Everything looses order when dark and wind combine and crash into the rain clouds. Colors swirling in head lights makes the road on the right invisible and I missed the turn three times. Luckily the alley has more than two ends, curbing some threat from the narrow street and opening up to visitors. Funny how urban alley's are more isolate. They are more like the cracks of a city, where all the unwanted things are found. This suburban alley is like an extended backyard where kid groups hang out after school.

Bong Recreation Area

We arrived as wood scavengers, too cheap to buy anything pre-cut. We traipsed deep into the isolated tree stands in search of larger scale logs, the meat of a fire. Most were wet, but we found enough big logs to fuel a fire to cook over and enjoy some drinks around. Kielbasa and Morning Star faux chicken patties hit the grate and food was crafted with sticks and minced garlic. Hours passed and bottles were emptied so we listened for the wolves. The pups cried for their mother, calling her back to the territory from her nighttime hunting excursion. The juvenile yelps rotated with the maternal howl and music was created. We tried to join in but, as we should have known, they did not welcome our intrusion of their evening orchestra. We retreated to the fire defeated, but Sarah didn't make. The picnic table reached out and tripped her, and Liz went with her. A graceful pile of giggles resulted and the bruises were laughed off and forgotten until the morning. Gun shots woke us and with each pow the birds scattered in flight. We struck a conversation about hunting for food and if we would be able to kill an animal. I couldn't help but think that some don't have the option to make this choice. I think I will kill an animal and eat it someday. Part of me hopes it's something like a squirrell to work against the convention. Although I recently read an article about our kindly rural counterparts who have resorted to eating small game such as squirrells and rabbits in the face of economic defeat. It's not but resourceful.

Under The Stairs

Ninety degree cement
walls and dust bunny
halls at the base of an old
house.

Watch your back for
size nine boots and
don't leave the mine
when the door creeks shut.

Scrape out the seasonal
shells and pit them for their
meat and rind,
hide them in the grime
behind the old crack.

Suburban treestands

Treestands are called forests out in the suburbs. Nicely trimmed paths cut through the plots of trees with ease and spandex bikers tear up their midst with thoughtless spinning.

The El

The man on the train cried out in lonely agony being trapped at home forever. His bent and crooked glasses and disheveled clothes were a cry for help on their own. In fact, I saw him twice in my journey to the ethnic neighborhood of Argyle. He apparently was just riding the trains all night, maybe looking for someone to talk to. He was silent around 5pm on my first trip on the red line, and by 8pm he had lost his marbles. He hit himself over the head numerous times. His hand made a fist but the contact with his forehead was made with the softest part of his fist, where his pinky closed around the outermost edge of his hand. This angle made repeated rapping somewhat awkward but his forehead still bore the red mark of self-hate.
His tears stained the back of the seat in front of him and everyone around him was staring with pity. The man next to him got off the train immediately after he began hitting himself, only to get on the next car, clearly very disturbed by the man's actions. He got off the train abruptly and I wondered where he had to go. I hoped it was some place sheltered and safe. An environment to comfort his troubled mind and people to make him feel wanted. While the city can foster communal living, it will never incorporate all the people in its midst.

Conflict Diamonds

Koidu, located near the western border of Guinea, was a town that was particularly hard hit during the civil war. The entire town was destroyed during the war and a “watery, lunar landscape of holes and mounds of mud” replaced it. None of the houses have roofing sheets, window frames or doors (Doyle) and some of them actually have small scale mines where there used to be floors. The center of the town was literally converted into one big mine, displacing millions of pounds of dirt and in the outskirts of town there lies many confusing webs of mines that stretch on for miles. Figure 1 shows a long stretch of mines to the West of the center of Koidu. The mines look like large puddles of muddy water because twenty feet of dirt is typically removed to reach the water tables in order to have river-like conditions in which sieves can be used to search through the soil. The bigger mines look how you might imagine the inside of an anta hill to look. The layers are numerous and intricate and certainly the result of many years of back breaking labor.

The rural way of life

Bren Whittaker spoke eloquently about the humble beauty of rural life. Growing up in the suburbs, as most of the people in the room did, Bren fought his way into the North Woods of Vermont where he was able to unite his religious beliefs with his tree hugging tendencies. His wife and him bought a piece of land fifty years ago and, as he said, they have been married to it ever since. Having spent a good part of my life in rural Vermont I was touched by his words and his love for the woods. His simple appreciation for a town of 106 people was enough to make me reconsider my urban inclination and remember what exactly it is about those woods that have brought me back every summer.
When asked what skills he sees as essential to adapting to rural life, Bren spoke of compassion, knowledge and a job. Compassion for the rural people who are born in a small town and never leave. Knowledge of ones intent to seek a rural life and make it work. A job for a little income to sustain a life from the land. The job, to me seems like the most obvious point. Having befriended many a rural Vermonter I understand the need for the compassion. Rural people are hard to relate to having been essentially raised in the suburbs. Young men identify with big trucks and young women complain about gossip but cannot escape either end of it. Rural life is made out of a different kind of cultural fabric, but it is a beautiful one. His point about knowledge made me pinpoint a specific moment in my life, after my college years started, when I began to view my little town of Poultney, Vermont differently. As my naivete wore off, so did my idealization of the place and its people. It all became more real and suddenly the young mothers and deer hunting young men were my dear friends and nights were spent on mountaintops with spotlights seeking out wildlife at midnight. The recession was more real but the churches were still white.

Rebecca Solnit in action

35o.org

Rebecca Solnit the activist. There is a rally in Chicago on the 24th. It's on the south in the neighboring hoods of the coal plants. These coal plants were built in the 50's and haven't been touched since then. They are some of the most polluting plants in the country. A woman reprepsentative came to the school and assured us it would be a safe environment where the likelihod of arrest was non-existent. Paperless immigrants reside in these neighborhoods and have no "right" to speak up.

No Sweet Home

The idea of home has been racking my brain since this assignment snuck up on me. I have long ago accepted that home as a physical place does not pertain to my life. Instead it seems to be something more mobile. I have felt at home in so many places that I have begun to think of it more as an abstract thing, or at least something that pertains only to me. My poetic depiction of homes takes place on a train platform and the people who make it home are strangers. These are all persisting ideas that I have carried with me for years now. When asked to write about them I was struck with the ease at which I was able to. I was once told never to write about emtional things for at least six months, before that they are too real for words. This rang true for me in this instence. I have often tried to write about my sense of home, only to find that all I was able to produce were words bound by emotion, unable to escape the dark corners of my mind to see the light of the page. As I have matured and the idea has become more trivial and almost exciting and now the writing is easier.

Kuwait

Video: Oil well fires in Kuwait

I have to lead the discussion in my senior seminar tomorrow and one of the topics we are looking at this week was also mentioned in Environmental Writing today. The overlaps continue.
I really enjoy the artistic aspect of this film. The use of the x-ray effect is really powerful in the shots of the endless piles of debris. I also really like how it works backwards, showing the scorched earth before the actual destruction. The music is also very stimulating, moving my senses to the feelings provoked by the oil-stained images.

AESS (ace) Conference

An interdisciplinary meeting of the minds held at the pulse of young research. Mentors and students alike gather to share their seeds of growth. Field ecology meets conservation and Afghanistan's lands have rights again. Ponytails and braids clash with plaids and track boots. A casual bonding soothes the souls of the impressionable minds whose studies have apocalyptic endings.
Under the dizzying market, one question dominates the conversation. "How do we change their minds?" The psychologists say to simply wear your helmet when you go for that carton of milk and the message will spread. The conservationists say to work with the people and their farms will be saved. Lions and humans can share space amicably but the Tanzanian bush pigs bait themselves in the paths of the villagers. Line their fields with trenches and wage war on the pests. Give them the tools and they will test it themselves. Anthropologists speak of the future and a military approach but their thoughts are just projections with history. Bury the seeds in the midst of a mountain, they say. Team up and join forces to protect each space in all aspects. Give voices to things that can't speak, and people who are not heard.
Teach your friends and hope the ripples in the water follow. Write to your senator and pray that democracy is on your side today. Learn from your teachers and treat them like partners. Act in the moment and think for the future, but do it for yourself. Care for your home like it cares for you.

Now they're really leading...

Leading from the front

I wonder what it will take for there to be synchrony in what the leaders want for their countries and what the public wants and is willing to do. The biggest problem I foresee in the so called "green movement" is that probably at least half the people who are aware of the changes that need to be made in the majority lifestyle are not willing, or do not see the worth, in making those changes for themselves.
I am very happy that some of the world leaders are putting climate change at the top of their priorities because with the governments on board, educators won't be hushed or ostracized for saying things like 'climate change'. Maybe the facts will be more accepted and the public less critical. I think it is the 'change' part of the phrase that really gets people. Very few people seem to let their minds wander beyond the implied meanings of climate change to discover that in fact, climates do change regardless of human impact. Humans go into the climates and build on them and expect their structures to be so much more permanent than nature's, but we are no more permanent than polar bears. Humans just happen to have some technology on their side to find ways to live anywhere, and in giving up some of those technologies we would be humbled to realize we really don't hold much greater power than the forces of nature.

Cold Toes

Leaves are whirling through
the window panes.
Rain sets in, washing
mud gullies
in the street.

The sky is dark,
I'm dreaming of more
sunlight in my life.

My plight is when
the clocks tick back,
and the sun shakes
longer through
the night.

In lieu of class

The peppers are lined up like tin cans waiting to be targeted by a distant shotgun. He grabs them one by one and sections them off into bites of perfection. The smell of browning fat bubbles in the background over an open fire. The pick nick table cutting board is a rainbow of fresh produce. His hands move by memory, handling the blades with ease. Cast iron cackles and cloves pop so he knows the time has come. The heat releases sweet smells that sizzle like an invitation. Wooden spoons mingle the mash together- it is his humble masterpiece.

She sits in crowd, hood-ridden and cowering from the echo of a microphone. Radio music blares to compete with rampant screams of joy. She remembers the neon ear plugs sitting next to her tooth brush and grumbles at her loss. Non-dancers compete for the idea of a trophy, but the real competition is at the end of an empty bottle. Celebration surrounds her but fills her with dread because all these people want is a friend. A man behind shades reads a sorry poem made up of recycled lines and lazy rhymes. In the end, the winners choose themselves and the night is wasted in the name of spirit.

Woodpecker wallows

The woodpecker came-a-knocking again this morning. I wonder how it is that the bees are scared (or killed) by the cold weather but she is not? Her pounding was a tad less fruitful and seemed somewhat haphazard like a last attempt at Sunday brunch. Has the cold frozen all her reliable feeding holes, or was she simply looking for desert?

Our Nuclear World

I am in the midst of reading a piece for another class written by a man who grew up on a nuclear Arsenal in Ohio. It is somewhat ethnographic and the beautiful creativity of his writing has moved me to the point of feeling a constant ache somewhere in the back of my throat. I feel like I am with him as he explores the contaminated land of his isolated home, as any young child would. He captures the innocence of his childhood with simple words and contrasts it with what he now knows he was actually exposing himself to in an ironic and almost casual way. Here is an excerpt:

"Whenever I stole past those fields of bunkers or whenever they drifted like a flotilla of green humpback whales through my dreams, I imagined fire leaping from one to another, the spark flying outwards to consume the whole creation. This poison I also carry in my bones, this conviction that we build our lives in mine fields. Long before I learned what new sort of bombs had devoured Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I knew from creeping among these igloos full of old-fashioned elopsives that, on any given day, someone else's reckless step might consume us all."
-Scott Russell Sanders from At Play in the Paradise of Bombs

Pollan again

Why are some farmers afraid of Michael Pollan?

Convincing Congress... or not.

Lester Brown speaks the truth... whatever that means.

Congress' idea of food reform is turning all the corn into the ethanol to fuel cars. This is almost laughable since it would probably only result in the production of more corn since both our cows and are cars will be consuming it. Brown speaks of something unthinkable to most- a real reform.

In his imaginary future the cows eat grass. Imagine that, if you can. In his future the cars are electrically powered and there are less of them. The Midwestern farms will be wind turbine pastures for cows to graze in. There will be intercity light rails, and the number of hungry people in world will cease to rise as it continues to. In the mid 1990s there were around 850 million hungry mouths, now there are over 1 billion. And the corn still stands tall and proud and we continue to stuff ourselves with fake food and empty calories- all at the expense of our beloved farmers.

What is authenticity?

No matter the number of times I chomp on this question, am still left with yet another question: Does it matter? Conservation biology is the careful science of conserving ecosystems. But aren't they ever-changing? This is always the argument against "global warming" but there is some sense in it when cynicism creeps up my pant legs. When a hopeless day has dragged on and I can't even count the number of faces I've seen, I turn to this unsettling thought and drag myself even deeper into the mud of my mind. We are feeding the change and accelerating it, the scientists say, shaking their hypocritical fingers in faces. Live in a city, and give in to the demons that started it all. Live in the suburbs, and give in to comfort and the convenience of cars. Live in the bush, and you are criticized for hunting the land you are made of because someone has endangered the species. There is no winning side and no end to criticism. Why does authenticity matter when it mean something different to each person, and nothing to nature. Ask a city dweller what the think authentic nature is and they will give you some idealized vision of beauty, peace and quiet-- the things they miss in their lives. Ask the same thing to a kin of the country and she will tell you exciting stories about handling nature with machines, stories about getting dirty, stories that will make you cringe with fear at the power of nature. Again, what is authenticity?

Fall Squeaks

Autumn nips at my heels
and my bike wheels now
squeak in the mornings.

Whirlwinds of yellow leaves
complete the race, beyond
the stop sign. We go
together despite the
green in the tress.

Stepping on squirrels
who scavenge and retreat.
Frantic hibernation is
teasing their yearly
lease.

Still wondering about Savtiz

"IN THE BAND OF PAINTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS
hired to determine the fertility of America"

This is perhaps a reference to the depression era of government funded artists who documented the atrocities of the dust bowl it is. If that is true I am still wondering whether these lines represent a hint of patriotism and how it applies to the rest of the poem. These lines stand out from the rest of the poem, as the last stanza does.

Illinois leads the way

"Illinois points the way to food system reform"

I'm hoping this has something to do with the wonderful people at the Green Market in Chicago. They're the real people who know what's going on. However, it seemed that there were more people from Michigan then from Illinois.

http://www.grist.org/article/illinois-points-the-way-to-food-system-reform/

Gray

I feel like something is missing from these gray days. The sun sheds a natural light on the world that cannot be simulated in any form, while the rain feeds the soil in a way that water from a hose simply cannot. Both of these gifts are comforting in their concreteness and tangible intent. The gray skies are an uncomfrotable crack between two certainties. The winds become stagnant, and the sun seems to have forgotten about us. Fow now, I'm willing the indisctinct clouds to open up and poor out their bountiful gifts.

Woodchuck Envy

A woodchuck traverses
the river bank in
search of l'herbe verte.
Her home is a dark
hole in the scene.

McMansions looming in the distance do not disturb her lunch.
Mine was ruined at their sight.
We are too big for her world.

She fights her way
upstream and feasts
on fresh algae growing
in a world only
her bottom half
can be a part of.

We consume things unfathomable to her herbivorous soul.
I envy her life on the bank and its simplicity.
We are too big for her world.

She looks past me and
I am relieve she cannot
see me for I know
I would frighten her
with colors she
has never seen.

A silver bullet whistles through the crack between my life and hers.
While I stare in amazement she remains undisturbed.
I am too big for her world.

A Hole in the Prairie

Shave me down
and let my colors fade
while the day passes
unnoticed.

My kin stand tall
above me and
they sigh in the wind
while I tickle the
ankles of my trampers.

Three-sided blades
manicured my wilderness.
Only the bees still visit.

But they are workers
with a narrow intent
and are quick to
move on to the
pretty-headed stems.

Those who used to
plunge and sing
amidst my jungle
of strands are now
a whisper on the
frontier.

The only pleasantries
I maintain are
the rain falling at
my roots and the
hand-holding children
who fill my center.
But only for a moment.

Wishy Washy Politics

Obama's Agriculture Policy- "like a tractor driven by a drunk"
I can't help but imagine Pollan shaking his head in belief as this though hand continues to be played out. For now I am trying my best to keep my foods' ingredients at five and under.

Mug-me

Something I hate about the humidity is that it makes me feel like I should shower twice a day. I can stand the grease in my hair for a few days but as soon as I feel a little sticky I need to be clean. Water is at waste! In the mean time the overcast days have brought no rain. I keep feelings specks of water on my nose but really it's really just moist air and not rain drops. I am using more water and still waiting for replenishment.

Follow up on yesterday...

The reason for my interest in the round table climate change debates at the United Nations is that my father works as an interpreter there. I called him to ask if he would be working for any of the debates and he said yes and promised to fill me in on what they were discussing. I just got this email from him.

"hi--i interpreted today at a round table of un conf. on cc. the member states are all preparing like mad for the copenhagen conference in a few months to establish a post-kyoto strategy for after 2012 but there are still doubts among developed and developing countries about getting enough aid to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation plans and about the developed countries' ability to meet targets, and what are realistic and achievable targets for carbon and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, carbon sequestration etc."

There does not seem to have been any progress made in this debate since the first Kyoto initiative.

Climate Week at the UN

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-20-climate-week-kicks-off-in-new-york-with-bigwigs-and-big-hopes/

Obama is trying to prove that he CAN change things and set the United States at the forefront of climate change action. Let's see how he does...

Thunder Road

I woke this morning to birds singing and the sun leaning through my window intrusively but invited. Now the rain sloshes from the sky and not an inch of this old road is dry. The shaking foundation with every beat of thunder is in harmony with the spastic rhythm in my chest. I'm breathing heavy. The lamp on the wall flickers and I press save, just the be sure. She's lounging on the ground, perhaps in discomfort, but she looks relaxed despite the angry storm outdoors. I haven't heard a crash in about five minutes and I can hear the drips from the eves start to distinguish themselves from the rain. She rubs her eyes, needing a jolt of lightening to remind her it's not bedtime, but the pitter patter only sings her to sleep. Her brows furrow as her eyes droop slowly, refusing the defeat, while her mouth stretches wide with the despair of sleepless evenings.

Learning Language

"Implicit knowledge makes language structures available for automatic use but not reflections. Children learn to speak without instruction; they absorb linguistic rules as a sponge absorbs water. Every language is intricate, but non is chaotic; the underlying uniformities reveal themselves to the neural sysmtems poised to pluck recurring patterns out of a sea of experience."
from "A General Theory of Love"
Thomas Lews, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon

Not only do children learn the general gramatical aspects of language through repeatedly being exposed to it, but they also learn the implications of words and their meanings. Therefore the way the think about and speak of things is all learned and, frankly, circumstancial. A "tree" to a child from North American Suburbia might mean something completely different than a "tree" to a child in a small logging twn somewhere in Oregon.

I could go for the timelessness of summer. No deadlines and certainly no watches. But the dichotomy of school and summer is surreal and sometimes unsettling. I guess I will live with the tinker dink of the clocks for now.

Bees

The bees are still here, and living in my walls. Their entrance in invisible to the human eye, but they continue to sneak inside, two or three at a time, during the cold nights. They've gotten bigger and more aggressive and I have concluded that it must be all the sunshine that has brought out their brawn and gumption.

I woke to a knock at the door and immediately heard a few morning bees buzzing and beating against the window above my head, trying to get back outside where they came from. It wouldn't be morning without them. I rose in a heap of tangled hair and blankets to answer the call, but no one was there. Just as I sat to gather my thoughts and continue waking up, there was another knock. I shot up in frustration to answer the door again. Still, no one was there. A flicker caught my eye outside the window by the bee hive. To my surprise a wood pecker flapped his wings frantically while he snapped at the bees, both suspended in midair. When the bees retreated back into their hive, he knocked again, chasing them out and into his range of fire.

beach side

The wind blew my jacket open and the air felt thick on my chest. I came to a screeching halt despite pressing lightly on my brakes. Too bad chemicals keep these parts lubed. I even feel defeated paying for an aerosol can of WD-40-- it's probably worth it. I fear that on a wet morning gravity will pull me over my handle bars at the request of a stop.
I arrived at the beach and sat on a bench with a view to the horizon where the undulating gray surface met the patchy sky. The seagull plunged to the water, only to complete the concave motion with the apex at sic inches above the crashing waves. A spectacular display of athleticism. We raced our bikes home, inspired.

Mongols

The mongols, a nomadic culture, were a tribe centered around warfare. Their lives depended on the next battle and therefore the next environment to which they would adapt. Their war techniques were extremely advanced and while their culture was nomadic, their tactics were precise while being "unconventional." There must be something superior in the animal-like ability to quickly and comfortably adapt to environments, and then successfully wage and win wars. Is there not something innately sophisticated in this primitive culture?

Questions from a Foggy Morning Brain

What I hate most about Capitalism is its ability to make the natural things seem insufficient, when in fact they are the only things that truly make us feel. To be alone in nature is to forget all the social implications of the "things" we have to replace our natural surroundings and embrace what is simply there. Are we eternally displeased and searching for something else or is this simply a trick of the capitalist swine of this dark night?

To The Key!

Do we really digest our texts for the master key? To what avail is this key beyond abstract words? In our studies of the environment we aim to deduce it and therefore humanize it. Through interdisciplinary studies we draw only perpendicular lines. The connections are everywhere and everything is circular. All things are one and the same. The earth begets the earth which inters it. The meanings and facts will never meet and the laws of nature stand to be broken.

Coffee Shop

A small family-owned shop is enticing the Lake Forest crowd because it offers something unique that Starbucks cannot touch.

The pastoral patio rests in a nook
almost beyond the sounds
of the cars the surround it
and the scent of the trees
blends perfectly with roasted beans.

Matching families drink and eat
and escape the breeze, but perhaps
regretfully.

A baby cries when the ice cream
plops on the tiled ground
and desert is ruined.

The forestians dream on
through life, or something like it.

Urban Greens

Sitting on the Loyola University campus looking out a window, and green grass, or an impression of it, is all I can see. Cities are being recreated to reincorporate that which they have banished. Happy people run around amidst high rise buildings, hardly thinking twice about the fact that they are outside, it is a clear night, and the city lights have replaced the stars.

some Politiques for the Mix (and a poem)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1&em

It's hard to be hopeless.
Worries could make my
stomach churn
and my brow sweat.

...Or was that the extra helping
of hormones the mistress
delivered last night?

No sense in dread,
might as well
be .

To Josh,

I enjoy that argument. I like the irony in the suggestion that we could wage a real war with nature involving armies and weapons. It credits the potential force of the environment while giving false hope to the enemy who will be unpleasantly surprised when nature has equal rights in war.

For the past few days I have not been able to get over the trope of the law as a way to relate humans to nature. Laws seem so unnatural, and yet we have "the laws of nature" such as gravity and the speed of light, neither of which are perfect sciences. To me it seems that the laws of humans and the laws of nature are so far apart from one another, being that we can never make any part of nature purely scientific--there will always be mystery--that the very phrase "laws of nature" is indescribable.

on Environment

There are two fundamental meanings of Environment. The first is centered around humans, and the second is removed from humans.

Nature's Army

This passage reminded me of a comment from last class.
"War, however, is not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass (total nonresistance would be no war at all) but always the collision of two living forces. The ultimate aim of waging war, as formulated here, must be taken as applying to both sides. Once again, there is interaction. Solon as I have not overthrown my opponent I am bound to fear he may overthrow me. Thus I am not in contorl: he dictates to me as much as I dictate to him."
-Carl von Clausewitz from On War

This excerpt is from a section of Chapter One titled "The Aim is to Disarm the Enemy." When the author speaks of "living forces" he is referring to opposing armies, however he is also, perhaps unknowingly, characterizing the environment in which war takes place. Is there not interaction between the environment, a living thing, and the armies that march thruogh it. Does the environment not fight back as it takes the brunt of war? Like Bacon said "the subtlety of nature is greater than the subtlety of argument." War, in the abstract, is but an argument which is why the environment gets overlooked as a player in the game. However, it is possibly the most threatening army.

Seeing Less

I close my eyes to forget the day and the pleasant whir of the wind in the trees is interrupted by the cacophony of an airplane and when the noise finally passes the birds make themselves heard with admirable musical talent. The wind blows again and it tickles my leg but it occurs to me that it must be a leaf because, although I can feel the wind, it somehow remains intangible. The life of this place fills my nostrils in the scents of rich soil and stale bark. I am distracted by the wriggle of something progressing from my fingertips to my elbow and I fight the urge to brush it off, hoping that I will earn respect as a good hostess. I fear the crunchy sounds of my steps and hope that they have not been too intrusive.

And when I open my eyes once my feelings of rejuvenation are lost and the looming semester clouds my vision. When asked to write down what is "on my mind" I am distracted because I have become so easily enthralled with the visual stimulants of this forest that my mind can do nothing but wander along, senseless yet busy. Now all that comes to me is the fact that my life is so consumed by visual stimulants that when I close my eyes to breathe in the world around me everything seems clear and the assignment is complete. And yet, when I open my eyes again I get lost in what I see and my thoughts become inchoate.

on Semiotics

"Even Francis Bacon, who sought scientific dominion over nature, observed that 'the subtlety of nature is greater than the subtlety or argument.'"
-Daniel Chandler

Welcoming Bees

Woke to a buzzing bee this morning. It seems the infestation continues despite my landlord's efforts to chemically control the "pests." Before the chemicals were added to the equation of humans in nature and nature in what is human they bees were hardly a problem. An invisible hole provided them with an outlet to our world but they are not aggressive bees and the problem was nonexistent. The chemicals chased them inside so when I woke two mornings ago thirty bees were swarming around a one room studio apartment that hardly sleeps two people. Now I am left with homicidal shame and I worry for the legumes that my lost friends maintain.

Green Market

I traveled to Chicago this morning, early enough to watch the fog drift from the streets back into the sky where it belongs. My destination was the green market but the navigation of city streets kept me back a little while, so I walked patiently and breathed in the city landscape and the sour smell of dumpsters. Finally I stumbled upon a park with a large grouping of tents with the best organic foods from all around the greater Chicago area. Everyone around me was refreshed by the morning air and the sight of real food, and I was not once pushed, shoved or gawked out, despite the dense crowd of organic eaters. The meet cute of two opposing worlds struck me in the midst of conversation when I looked up above the hanging herbs to see a city high-rise. It's funny how we try to reincorporate what is missing from city life once we have banished all signs of it.

Thin Description 1

The Shooting Star Savanna is proudly our Lake Forest College wilderness haven, accompanied by a thought-provoking stone bench and mesmerizing musical sounds coming from somewhere within the canopy above. Native species surround us and grow rampant as they should. Environmental studies professors puff their chests out proudly at the thought of the suburban convenience and the excuse to spend class hours in something other than the limiting space of the great indoors. To leave modernity and the comfort of designated learning space is an adventure even when the learning space is just out the back door of the conventional red brick and into a more foreign space. While the flower heads are level with mine and the trees hold stories a hundred years old I can still hear the buzz of a whipper snipper somewhere across the ravine and the echo of a jet engine trailing its way from one horizon to the next. I am reminded of the lines of cars behind me and the rubber soles on my feet. The trees are just as much a boundary as the classroom walls.

Thick Description 1

The Shooting Star Savanna is a naturally recreated prairie, a suburban solution to the loss of wilderness. But, more people are rolling up their lawns for wild grass and flowers, maybe even a man made pond. The reappointed native species surround us and grow rampant as the real wild does. Professors puff their chests proudly at the throught of the exurban convenience of growth within the cracks of the civilized. To think the evolution of education has ended in limiting the physical space in which it takes place gives me shivers in the sunlight, but I march along the path of academia proudly. The conventional red brick walls hold my mind, and the native prairie beyond the glass is but a foreign place. Reminding me of the otherworldliness of this space, where the flower heads are level with mine, is the echo of a jet engine trailing its way from one horizon to he next. I think of the lines of parked cars behind me and the rubber soles of my feet. The trees are just as much a boundary as the classroom walls.

Thin Description 2

‘Tis a concrete garden: nameless and hard enough to break a glass bottle. The only green in this garden grows in the cracks where the bricks should collide but, for whatever reason, don’t. The moss and grass claim the space. I want to count the bricks but realize that would be as pointless as counting flowers, were they there. The plotted trees stand tall, and close enough by the remind me I am outside. The season caters to the crickets and birds I hear often, but see rarely. Two children are playing ring-around-the-rosy on their bikes and their training wheels fill the air with a drowning vibration. Wearing helmets for protection does not save one fall from becoming a tragedy. The fun and spontaneity of the outdoors is abruptly ended by the threat of the concrete garden.

Thick Description 2

If you think a garden must contain flowers and soil, you are wrong, for I found one made of ninety degree angles and red-grey cement. The only green in this garden grows in the cracks where the bricks should collide, but even the manufactured world is imperfect. I want to count the bricks but realize that would be just as pointless as counting the flowers, were they here. Green lawns roll to trees, leading me into the remembrance that this is an outdoor environment. The unlawful whether has teased me since my return from the desert but the sun is out and the season caters to the crickets and birds who migrated with us in our quest alone the beaten interstates. Children are always making the best out of this created landscape and I see two playing ring-around-the-rosy on their bikes, their training wheels filling the air with drowning vibrations as rubber meets brick. Wearing helmets because she said so does not save one fall from becoming a tragedy and a concerned mother warns and protects her child from the looming outdoors. The fun and spontaneity of the adventure is abruptly ended by the threat of the concrete garden.