New use of onion

Very interesting, .

In 1919 when the flu killed 40 million people there was this Doctor that
visited the many farmers to see if he could help them combat the flu.
Many of the farmers and their family had contracted it and many died.

The doctor came upon this one farmer and to his surprise, everyone was very
healthy. When the doctor asked what the farmer was doing that was different
the wife replied that she had placed an unpeeled onion in a dish in the
rooms of the home, (probably only two rooms back then). The doctor couldn't
believe it and asked if he could have one of the onions and place it under
the microscope. She gave him one and when he did this, he did find the flu
virus in the onion. It obviously absorbed the bacteria, therefore, keeping
the family healthy.
Now, I heard this story from my hairdresser in AZ. She said that several
years ago many of her employees were coming down with the flu and so were
many of her customers. The next year she placed several bowls with onions
around in her shop. To her surprise, none of her staff got sick. It must
work.. Try it and see what happens. We did it last year and we never got the flu.

Now there is a P. S. to this for I sent it to a friend in Oregon who
regularly contributes material to me on health issues. She replied with this
most interesting experience about onions:

Thanks for the reminder. I don't know about the farmers story.. but, I do
know that I contacted pneumonia and needless to say I was very ill.. I came
across an article that said to cut both ends off an onion put it into an
empty jar...placing the jar next to the sick patient at night. It said the
onion would be black in the morning from the germs.. sure enough it happened
just like that.. the onion was a mess and I began to feel better.

Another thing I read in the article was that onions and garlic placed around
the room saved many from the black plague years ago. They have powerful
antibacterial, antiseptic properties.

This is the other note.

Lots of times when we have stomach problems we don't know what to blame.
Maybe it's the onions that are to blame. Onions absorb bacteria is the
reason they are so good at preventing us from getting colds and flu's and is
the very reason we shouldn't eat an onion that has been sitting for a time
after it has been cut open. 

LEFT OVER ONIONS ARE POISONOUS

I had the wonderful privilege of touring Mullins Food Products, Makers of
mayonnaise.. Mullins is huge, and is owned by 11 brothers and sisters in the
Mullins family. My friend, Jeanne, is the CEO.

Questions about food poisoning came up, and I wanted to share what I learned
from a chemist.

The guy who gave us our tour is named Ed. He's one of the brothers Ed is a
chemistry expert and is involved in developing most of the sauce formula.
He's even developed sauce formula for McDonald's.

Keep in mind that Ed is a food chemistry whiz. During the tour, someone
asked if we really needed to worry about mayonnaise. People are always
worried that mayonnaise will spoil. Ed's answer will surprise you. Ed said
that all commercially- made Mayo is completely safe.

"It doesn't even have to be refrigerated. No harm in refrigerating it, but
it's not really necessary." He explained that the pH in mayonnaise is set at
a point that bacteria could not survive in that environment. He then talked
about the quaint essential picnic, with the bowl of potato salad sitting on
the table and how everyone blames the mayonnaise when someone gets sick.

Ed says that! when food poisoning is reported, the first thing the officials
look for is when the 'victim' last ate ONIONS and where those onions came
from (in the potato salad?). Ed says it's not the mayonnaise (as long as
it's not homemade Mayo) that spoils in the outdoors. It's probably the
onions, and if not the onions, it's the POTATOES.

He explained, onions are a huge magnet for bacteria, especially uncooked
onions. You should never plan to keep a portion of a sliced onion.. He says
it's not even safe if you put it in a zip-lock bag and put it in your
refrigerator.

It's already contaminated enough just by being cut open and out for a bit,
that it can be a danger to you (and doubly watch out for those onions you
put in your hotdogs at the baseball park!) Ed says if you take the leftover onion and cook it like crazy you'! ll probably be okay, but if you slice that leftover onion and put on your sandwich, you're asking for trouble. Both the onions and the moist potato in a potato salad, will attract and grow bacteria faster than any commercial mayonnaise will even begin to break down.

Also, dogs should never eat onions. Their stomachs cannot metabolize onions.

Please remember it is dangerous to cut an onion and try to use it to cook
the next day, it becomes highly poisonous for even a single night and
creates toxic bacteria which may cause adverse stomach infections because of excess bile secretions and even food poisoning.

The Evolution of Interest

           Last Sunday afternoon I was raking leaves that had fallen from the grape arbor and then I found myself cutting vines and trimming back the overgrowth.  I had to smile to myself handling those vines, oh, how I used to treasure them!

           Twenty years, ago, when Martha Stewart had all middle class women turned into little homemakers, my social lady friends and I were making grape vine wreaths.  I use to spot vines growing wild while driving and mentally mark the spot for later harvesting.  Often I would be climbing around logs in the freezing cold reaching beyond my true ability for a nice long vine. I recall once, I even slipped and fall in snow! Then I would soften the vines in a warm bathtub, slowly then I make a circle of them and build it thicker and thicker.   There were  long hours involved in the whole process.

           Tired and needing a rest late afternoon Sunday, I sat in a lawn chair for about twenty minutes and made a wreath.  I remembered my friends fondly and how important getting it right was for all of us.  Now, Living Magazine, I pick up, glance at the photography and think of all that silliness.

           My magazines of choice are Arces and Mother Earth News now.  My interests have moved on, I guess.  But it was fun, remembering, and quietly creating a wreath.  This wreath may make it to the side door this holiday season, just to remind me to smile.

Bread

           My mother was a city girl, grew up in Tucson when it was a the cross roads of the depression with trains going west to California and travelers going north and south on ancient pathways from Mexico to Canada.  At that point in history is was most famous for the TB sanitariums for wealthy people from the east.

           After she married my father, a farm kid from South Dakota, she decided to learn to bake bread like all the women of his family.  That tale famously was repeated many times to me by my mother. 

            "There are sometimes in life that can't be learned out of a book, that can be learned if you don't have a teacher that stands right next to you.  One of them is breadmaking, Loretta."

             "Did you ever try, Mother?'

             "Oh, I tried but I was no good at it.  I never told your father because he was always comparing me to his mother and sisters.  I made bread.  It was so bad I feed it to the chickens before you Dad came in from the field."

              "How could it be that bad?  What happens?"

               "There are just something in life you have to learn as kid like farming, a city kid can go out as an adult become a farmer.  I believe breadmaking is the same way.  There is a feel for it, knowing how much to knead it and working with yeast, that is a whole skill in doing that.  No, breadmaking has to be taught as a young girl."

              For my whole life I accepted that story as fact.  I had put the skill of bread making on the list of things I was not going to do because of this fable in my family.  Once I owned a new bread making machine but quickly lost interest in it as I would have only spent time for extraordinary bread not white bread that smelled up the house in a Martha Stewart way.  Truly artisan breads were my interest, but the fable said not in this life time, until this month.

              In Arces magazine there was an article by Lauren Chattman about whole grain breads.  I was hooked.  She wrote about different grains, protein, fermentation, flavor in ways I never heard before.  I want to include more seeds and nuts in my diet and as I was reading her story about bread, I realized this is the easy way to do it.  Then the family story about bread making popped into my mind.  Well, I answered the story by saying, I have chickens.

               I copied the eight grain and seed pan loaf recipe and let it hang around my kitchen counter for about a week.  One day I picked it up and headed to a bulk food store and started buying the ingredients.  The following Saturday was rainy and my gardens show was on the radio.  The evening before I made what Chattman calls the soaker, enough for two loafs.  The soaker is the a mixture of seeds and nuts soak overnight to bring out the flavor and sweetness.   The whole process took a long time on Saturday, it seemed like to me.  But the loaves turned out great.

               Farming, maybe, a skill that is learned as a child but I can say for sure that, skill of making bread, can be self taught later in life.

Labels mean nothing

        The national news do repeated stories tonight about how fish is mislabeled and sold falsely.  It is not simply the pricing that is an issue, it is the source, the manner in how the fish was raised and the pesticides that were used in the process that is the most frightening for me.  There is a break down in all aspects of our food supply system.

         The Victory Garden Program was one of the most popular programs in the war period, and extension agents developed programs to provide seed, fertilizer, and simple gardening tools for victory gardeners. An estimated 15 million families planted victory gardens in 1942, and in 1943 some 20 million victory gardens produced more than 40 percent of the vegetables grown for that year's fresh consumption. 

            I found that bit of information mind blowing.  40 percent of the food was fresh and local.

Soil, minerals and health

          My monthly reading includes Arces USA magazine.  This current issue features many articles about the health of our soils across the nation.  The direct effect of this subject is the all over health of our food and the minerals we are lacking because of the current practices of soil management.

          For centuries the fertilizer used to grow crop were tightly related to farming animals.  The soil was feed by the roaming of these animals or the distribution of their manure is they were housed or penned up for part of the year.  Now that principle is ignored by corporate farming industry.  The results are being linked to the increase of diseases humans are now experiencing and the lower nutrient values of field crops and the health of our meat that is consumed.  Tied to this thought is research that suggests that prepared feed, even high quality feeds, do not match the diverse minerals animals get from eating grass and weeds in open fields.

         Our food supply needs to be reorganized in a way that honors the traditions that protect the soil, raise healthy animals and plant foods.  All of this research shows me that the more I can eat out of my garden, the better my health will be.

Busy Fall Gardening

         A couple weeks ago I had some branches and leaves from ornamental bushes in the yard mulched up. I put them under the apple trees along with oyster shells and steer manure.  Then I cover the base each espalier tree along my back fence with a burlap bag anchored with rocks.  That is an extra step I take because I am gardening with chickens.  Yes, I let my chickens roam the yard a few hours each day and it makes me joyful to watch them but it is also added work for me.  So far, this method has work very well and I hope it holds though the winter months.  I have checked with Micheal Phillips's book THE APPLE GROWER  and I have a few other will chores to do this fall besides picking my apples.  Interestingly this Sunday's NYT has an article about different ways to transform an apple by treating it more like a potato.  All of them quite unexpected and will quickly be explored by me.
         The apples are beginning to fall of the limbs so it is time for me to check and see what needs to be harvested. I have large flat boxes saved for winter storage that I carting from my visited to Costco.                                                                   

The Wealth Pile in Front of the House

          When I was in high school the local parish priest taught religion class one day a week.  He was Irish and had the one in a life time trip overseas to his ancestral home land.  Father Denis enjoyed reliving this trip with my junior year class in great detail.  When he went on to explain that each rural home had a large pile of manure in the front or side yard. We all looked shocked and feel pity for such backward people.  Then he explain that they considered it their wealth pile.  It fertilized their field and made them prosperous.

Where is the farmhouse, where is wealth pile?

           Any small truck farmer today and all urban gardeners like myself knows that recycling of kitchen food scabs, chicken manure and mulch from the leaves and wood chips are the answer to successful gardening.

           The large wheat fields of today are the possible with petroleum.  What happens to this landscape without the  subsidies of fossil fuel industry?  What happens as the world demands out paces the resource for this type of fertilizer?

            There is a strangeness to this landscape.  There is little sign that humans life in this part of the country.  The field meets the roadway without a fence or a weed.  The view from a hill top can reach 25 miles and there maybe one  building to be seen. Where are the people that plant this field, where do they live?  Do they walk the land or touch the wheat heads?

          I think like big banks, big fields have a short life cycle, they are unsustainable.
           
     

Ground Cherries

          All of my small berry type fruit did very well in this year with the rainy cool spring.  The surprise for me this year as been how much the ground cherries produced.  I put had one plant in the ground and and it spread and flatten out as if it was a pancake.  I found all this tiny paper covered fruit laying under the plant and realized they were all ripe and sweet waiting for me to harvest them.

           Next year I will probably plant ground cherries in a raised bed and may even lay a burlap sack around the base of the plant to make things easier later in the season, keeping the fruit from the soil and the slugs.  I will also try either a tomatoes cage or a rope system to keep the branches off the ground.  Last night I throw a few into our lettuce catch all salad and they were lovely surprises to bite into.  So far, I have preferred to eat my small fresh with out the work of baking or the addition of sugar.

Potato Harvest

         Since the subject harvesting potatoes is important enough for artists like Breton, Pissarro and Millet to create paintings around the event I guess I can share some stories about my experiences yesterday.  I harvested most of my potatoes from one 12 by 15 foot bed I had.

          Now, to begin with it has to be understood that my vegetable gardening is a personal style not written about as standard method of gardening.  I allow my chickens to walk though this bed, stop and scratch this area at will and occasionally uproot a potato.  Of course, I have been eating these gems that have been exposed in the last couple months as a matter of course.

           In the morning, I used the shovel for a while, then sat on a small stool with a hand trowel.  I pulled the plants and weeds making one pile for them and another pile of the potatoes.   I was joined by Autumn, one of my chickens.  She quickly discovered the newly exposed earth meant it was easy to see worms.  Autumn was my companion for most of an hour and rapidly sensed my repeated patterns of movement.  She would occasionally do a few energetic two step moves but mostly she let me do the hard work.  As I progressed across the bed,  I started to look for worms as much as potatoes, that is called bonding with a chicken!

           The surprising thought about digging potatoes is how the grocery store bags all the same size so neatly.  Potatoes come in sizes ranging from the size of a grape to grapefruit.  What happens to the odd size potatoes in the commercial world?  I knew in the morning how I was going to fix those grape size tubers. By noon I had two piles of mostly red potatoes and a few whites.

            Later in the afternoon, John joined in the fun as we both sat near a wash tub in the middle of the yard. I placed a cloth of screen near us so as scrubbed  the dirty off we could make new piles according to size.  I encouraged John to only do the really big potatoes.  All during this time, John is questioning when will this job be ended and I answered him by asking what was on his schedule later.  Those little grape potatoes were of special interest to me as I reached into the wash tub of dirty water.  As the pile of the screen grew I felt I had done this job many times before or at less it was implanted in my Irish veins.

              Last night for dinner we had tiny potatoes with sea salt, rosemary and olive oil.  Those little gems made John smile with pride.

       

Have to relearn

If one is retired in these days the pension plan somehow has to be protected from the stock market, has to be earning more than interest to live off of and can not be the income from of the value of real estate.  A simple life style has already being adopted by most Americans but new ways will continue to be found as it the economy worsens.

The little book I received four years ago about a WWII English Vegetable Garden I then viewed a charming thing. Now I look at it was a bible for today's life that should be in print for all Americans, maybe for all Europeans also.

The debt bubble has enveloped Greece, Ireland and Portugal and most likely will suck in Belgium, Spain and Italy in the process. There is absolutely no way a financial crisis can be avoided and it’s already been in this stage of failure for two years. No country can bailout these six without destroying themselves. Can 21 nations find $4 to $6 trillion to bail out the six? We do not think so, and we have said this from the beginning. Fragile isn’t the word for it, neither is contagion. The operative phrase is object failure.

Morality and Empathy

I wish I could remember who first posted that:

When Ron Paul began to practice medicine, people had heart attacks, and died.
When Ron Paul began to practice medicine, people contracted cancer, and died.
When Ron Paul began to practice medicine, premature babies were born, then quickly died.
When Ron Paul began to practice medicine, people with torn ACL limped for the rest of their lives.

Today, all of those things are treatable. Treatments which keep people alive and improve their well being cost more than simply letting them die, or letting them "live with it."

Mr. Paul is simply out of touch with the reality of the practice of medicine - likely because he stopped being a doctor in 1976 when he switched careers to become a politician.

Not one person on the stage had the moral courage to disagree, not one person had the empathy for a dying person.  What has become of America? 

­.

Adding Spice to my Life

It is amazing to find a book that is factual, material presented that is easy and quick to understand and at the same time takes a reader, that probably is new to the field, along a path to change.  That is the book I just finished reading.  HEALING SPICES HOW TO USE 50 EVERYDAY AND EXOTIC SPICES  TO BOOST HEALTH AND BEAT DISEASE by Bharat B. Aggarwal.

Let me share some gems from the book to beginning with and then I will wrote about the changes I will be making.   Top meal for a healthy heart---"dine on a serving of fish flavored with garlic and topped with slivered almonds.  Don't forget a side or two of vegetables.  Drink a glass of red wine with the meal.  And for dessert, much on an apple and a small piece of dark chocolate."

Or this one-----"The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a consistent pattern of protection--the more onions in the diet, the less cancer. Red, white, yellow onions, garlic, shallots and leeks are members of the family. Garlic is the 'anti-aging' food.  On of the world's most potent natural medicines."

Or this gem----The Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto showed that lycopene (tomatoes) prevention and treatment of osteoporosis, the the consumption of tomatoes and tomato products may offer a viable alternation to mediation for osteoporosis. 

Finally on the most important spice, Turmeric and the active ingredient curcumin.  Dr. David Frawley , "If I had only one single herb to depend upon for all possible health and dietary needs, I would choose the Indian spice turmeric."  As a folk remedy , it has been used to treat some 60 maladies.  Let me tell a personal one, it is about my left hip.  I am not bothered by it in the daytime but at night, the pain of it wakes me up.  I turn,  I have taken an assortment of pain killers, enyzimes but it became a fact to sleep with.  Until I read about the power of curcumin and it reducing inflammation.  I have personal proof of it's power.  Sometimes, I wake and wait to feel the pain, as if it is not possible to be pain free, then I realize there is no pain with that hip.  I am currently taking two 450 mg. first time in  the morning, then two more before bed.  The fact is that turmeric as no side effects so there is no limit to the amount one can take, the list of 35 prevent or/and  treatments of illnesses it can be used for is in the book. Many of them are written about.   The most important item I find is that it is called the guardian of the liver.  Everything we consume good or bad, makes a stop at the liver.  Curcumin keeps the liver healthy-------that is worth gold in terms our bodies.

I have made a list of new herbs that will be making their way to my cooking pots, some will be grown in my garden next year and my skills at making spice mixes will be on my schedule to practice this winter.  I enjoyed reading this book and and need it as a reference book so I have to purchase a copy.

Still Young

Thomas Jefferson is quoted as calling himself an old man but a very younger gardener, it is perhaps my favorite quote about gardening.  There is so much to learn about the whole process of growing plants that just about the time I think I understand that now, the weather for a particular season is totally different and it offers more challenge.   There are disappointments each year but also surprises that the earth gifts, without any work on my part. 

This year has I am calling the berry year.  The wild blackberries are so numerous that I picked another five pounds again last week.  Now that is a free gift from mother earth.  In my yard the blueberries have had a very good crop and that idea of planting different varieties so they ripen at different times has proven to be very wise.  One bush is still producing for me.  The surprise though now is the raspberries they love this late summer heat and I am giving plenty of water.   The first berry of the spring are the red strawberries that are the warmth and sweetness of the sun.  I have volunteers all over my year, thanks to the birds I suppose.  My bed is a favorite of the chickens and fortunately they clean the bed of bugs and weeds more than they are interested in eating the fruit.

My current plans are to have three hoop beds going for the winter months.  One will be mixed greens and two will be kale.  Another bed will go until maybe December with onions and Brussels sprouts.   There are always some herbs that survive during the winter and I do protect them on very cold night with a cloth cover.  They are want makes the soup or dish in the middle of winter smell so wonderful.

The Anointed One

The other night during the debates I had a flash back to a C-Span book lecture I heard a couple years ago.  It was a WOW moment.

During the debate the question was asked of Perry about his record of the number of people he has allowed to be put to death in his prison system.  The audience cheered and applauded.  Perry without a moments pause answered with a firm he stands by the figures, is proud of it, he is without regret. 

WOW!  There is something very deeply missing or injured in that man's core.  Taking human life is against the most basic DNA of  our soul.  Sadly, this man has been invited by the Bilderbergers in 2007,  it would make sense to understand that big international money is betting on him as the anointed one.

The lecture I refer to was by a graduate of Westpoint, serviced in a war zone, taught at Westpoint, author a book about the psychology of making a man ready to go to battle.  It was a very sobering eye opening talk about how from WW I to the present day, the army has done such a good job of understanding the need to break down the basic human reluctance to killing another human -- the United States military is best killing machine ever known in history.  

Perry's answer made me think of that lecture.

Daisy Mae

I lost a good buddy on Monday. 

She has been in  my life almost 15 years.  She never talked about time in terms of years but she was down to the minute about other things.  She always like meal times routine and punctual.  I could find myself deeply involved in a project or a leisure activity and she brought me back to the moment in an second to the hour on the clock, the minute of the day.

She was an English Pointer, mid size, 40 pounds.  She never hunted professionally but could point, even stand on her back legs and look over the tall grass if she sensed the need to follow her instincts.  Her noise was stronger than her eyes. 

My favorite memories of her is the fabulous spirit of freedom that she was capable of.  It was on display as I watched her run the early morning beaches of Sandestin, Florida or Cannon Beach in Oregon or the golf course in Door County, Wisconsin.  It was a flight so fast that  it seemed that the feet only occasionally touched the ground.   I remember a winter in Sandestin with the white sand, the tide slowly coming in, the sun dancing on the straight line across the surface of the water and not a living being there but us.  She made me love that day and that memory. She frighten me, also, occasionally, when I lost sight of her but then back she came full speed, the sand made a noise at my feet, when she stopped.

It was five in the morning and before sunrise on Cannon Beach when we walked together.  It was a new beach to me and she was older but she showed that same spirit was still in her muscles as she run and made huge circles around me.  She exhibited enjoyment that have to be present in all of us, that total ability to feel joy.

Another connection, we shared, that was a bond was food.  She often lay to watch me in the kitchen,  waiting to catch my eye and the moment I would find a morsel for her.  In recent times we have always share breakfast.  I gave her part of my toast and if I have fried eggs it was also shared with her.

She became notorious, food-wise, in her early life by stealing a bit of food from a woman at one of my parties, the morning after a New Year's Eve gathering.   Of course, the woman was lounging in a chair with her hand dropped holding the remains of a breakfast Danish.  It stopped the conversation in the room for a minute or two but it firmly cemented her 'food grabbing reputation'.   One other habit she had in the days of large dinner parties, that some dinner guests found annoying was, to very gently lay her head on their leg under the dining table.  She will circle the table until she found someone that would feed her tiny bits, quietly.  My loyalty was with her, the rest of those people went home at night.

Traveling with her made the trips more deliberate with stops for walks, conversations with strangers came easily and fresh water in the car, standard. She travel north to south from Wisconsin to Florida each way possible.  The two round cross country trips to California included her barking at the elk in Yellowstone Park, walking the streets of Palo Alto and sleeping though the state of Nebraska.

The last couple years, my buddy has lost her hearing and she found that long walks were not much fun.  For last five days I have known that her liver had enlarged and at her age, she could not have got though surgery.  The pain of digesting food was more of an ordeal and meds were becoming less and less helpful.  It was my time to do her a favor and we went to the vet office to say good by.

The important part of our shared time was that she expressed delight in life and grounded me in other ways.

 My life would have missed something if we had not shared time. 

I will miss my Daisy Mae!

things I recently learned

The easy way to use beet greens is to put them on the top steamer while cooking the beets.  Takes only a few minutes and the greens are tender.  I like to take off most of the stem.  Then I eat the greens as a side dish, mix with potatoes, mix with some garlic/onion/cheese.

I have pulled weeds for the last four days in my yard and managed to fill a wheel barrow each day.  Yes, spring was a very long season this year and the weeds got a head of me.  What surprises me is with all the weed pulling my arms still have low flying wings!

I have pruned the espalier trees on the back fence.  They look neat and groomed and healthy.  I am saving all the branches for mulch to go back on my beds.  This Thursday a guy is coming to do ornamental trees and bushes pruning and that will also be added to my pile to chop up.  This resource is valued like good manure for an organic gardener.

My blueberries produced the most this year for me.  Spring rains probably. 

Two female family members have had breast cancer surgery in the last 15 days.  The raise of cancer is all around us.  Hear yesterday that a radiologist in town confirms the same here in Olympia.  She also will never put a cell phone to her head, only uses it to text.  All of us have to ask the question of what are the things about American life style that are related to the raise in cancer?

My granddaughter's new teacher told her students that she will not allow those backpackers in her room.  I guess she read about the over the shoulder  front method of carrying books better for their young backs. 

Purchase some chia seed that Dr. Oz has been talking about on his show.  It is a nice addition to anything.  I understand it can grow in my area so next spring, this plant that is from the mint family, will be seeded in my garden.

Politically, it is hate season.  Surprisingly, Christians are so firm in their superiority of being wise I wonder, who is it that they are following.  The gentle man that walked the earth 2,000 always looked out for the less among the population.  Today's talk is about protecting the elite among those Christians politicians.  Oh, the race thing is a fact, studies show only whites under 30 voted for Obama in the last election.

The signs that my husband's Alzheimer's is progressing when he single handedly decided to eat the whole plate of fortune cookies, or when he put five socks on one foot or ask where is his tie and puts his hand on his head. 

The little comfort I feel in these times after listening to the news, watching the stock market or hearing the latest report of extreme weather somewhere in the U.S. is that my back yard has a garden.   I have some seeds, I touch the soil and I watch my chickens.  My world is small but it is sane.

                                               

The Servant that lives in the White House

This is too interesting not to get posted and read wider.    The US Dictatorship and its White House Servant ‘President’ by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, August 1, 2011
Email this article to a friend Print this article
0diggsdigg 0
If there is one thing that the office of President Barack Obama demonstrates it is that democracy does not exist in the United States. This may seem a rather outlandish statement. For many people, the fact that the 44th president is the first black man to preside over the White House – with its American colonial-style architecture – is a tribute to the triumph of US democracy. But many other more telling facts indicate that Obama is but a figurehead of an unelected government in the US. This unelected power of corporate elites – commercial, financial, military – governs with the same core policies regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Whether these policies are on social, economic or foreign matters, the elected president must obey the direction ordained by the unelected elite. That kind of untrammeled power structure conforms more closely in practice to dictatorship, not democracy. As Michael Hudson and Ellen Brown reveal in their analyses of the US budget debacle, Obama is pathetically doing the bidding of Wall Street – much like an errand boy [1] [2]. Brown writes: “The debt crisis was created, not by a social safety net bought and paid for by the taxpayers, but by a banking system taken over by Wall Street gamblers. The gamblers lost their bets and were bailed out at the expense of the taxpayers; and if anyone should be held to account, it is these gamblers. “The debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured one, engineered to extort concessions that will lock the middle class in debt peonage for decades to come. Congress is empowered by the Constitution to issue the money it needs to pay its debts.” Obama’s servile toeing of Wall Street’s line is not the behavior of a free leader boldly defending the interests of the people and the greater good. Rather, his behaviour is that of one doing what he is told to do – and doing it with grateful deference. In this way, of course, Obama is hardly different from his predecessors. But of difference is just how blatant the White House is now appearing to function as a mere tool of the rich and powerful elite. The irony is that Obama’s election was presented as a potent symbol of American democracy; the truth is that the two-party system has become a threadbare cover for immense feebleness when it comes to serving the diktat of elite power as opposed to the good of the people. “The most powerful office in the world” would be more accurately referenced as “the most feeble purveyor of elite interests”. Obama’s presence in the White House indulges a superficial moral/political correctness while the masters whip us all into austere servitude. The US “war on terror” is another illustration of America’s dictatorship of the elite – and Obama’s pathetic servile role of carrying out the masters’ orders in defiance of the will of the people. Recall that Obama’s bid for presidential election in 2008 was avowedly based on ending the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also denounced his incumbent rival George W Bush over the use of special powers that enabled such aberrations as the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp and a host of draconian home security policies infringing on civil rights Obama also signaled in his inaugural speech – reiterated again soon after in Cairo – that under his watch the US was resetting foreign policy – turning away from the militarist policies of Bush to a more enlightened approach for settling conflicts with the Muslim World and Iran in particular. “If they unclench their fist, we will extend our hand,” Obama declared with seemingly heartfelt eloquence. But on every count, Obama has reneged on his supposed opposition to the US “war on terror”. Indeed, under his watch, the US has expanded its militarist foreign policy – which is apparently predicated on the belief that “western democracy is threatened by Islamic extremism”. Obama has done nothing to roll back draconian home security policies, indeed appears to have extended them. And he continues his predecessor’s deception of conflating Iran and its alleged nuclear ambitions as part of this phony “Islamic extremists” narrative. To perform such a disgraceful U-turn on so many election promises, the presidency of Barack Obama is clear proof that the holder of office in the White House is not the one who is setting policy – rather, he is following policy that is set by unelected others. When news broke about the massacre in Norway where more than 70 people were killed in a twin bomb and gun attack, Obama reacted like an automaton of the unelected power system, instead of like an independent, reasonable political leader. Even though it was clear within hours of the atrocity that the perpetrator was a blond-haired Norwegian with fascist and deeply Islamophobic views, nevertheless Obama reacted immediately to present it as an act of Islamic terrorism. Speaking from the White House, Obama said: “It's a reminder that the entire international community has a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring, and that we have to work co-operatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks.” The president may not have used the words “Islamic terrorism” but it is clear that he was invoking the massacre as part of the “war on terror” which is predicated on the notion of Islamic terrorism. In this mindset, Obama was not alone. British Prime Minister David Cameron moved into action stations, saying that British intelligence would help their Norwegian counterparts to track down the culprits – again implying that the perpetrators were part of an international organization – which in war on terror code means an Islamic organization. The US and British news media also jumped to the conclusion that the Norwegian attacks must have something to with Al Qaeda or some other “Jihadist” group. That such a widespread and erroneous reflex response from Western political leaders and news media – the so-called free press – can be elicited so uncritically shows how trenchantly the war on terror and its Islamophobic mindset are embedded. The consequences of this are deeply disturbing. For a start, such a mindset of the Western political and media establishment can only lead to further Islamophobia in these societies. There were reports of hate attacks against ordinary Muslims across Europe immediately after the Norway atrocity, no doubt caused by the malign and erroneous way that politicians and the media attributed the incident to Islamists. Even more disturbing is that the war on terror mindset fomented by Western governments and media over the past 10 years has led to the creation of lunatic fascist psychopaths like Anders Behring Breivik who carried out the Norway mass murder. Breivik and others like him think that Europe and the US must be defended from some kind of Muslim threat. This kind of logic does not conjure from thin air. It is rather the logical conclusion of the war on terror mindset that Western governments and news media have pushed down the throats of their citizens for a decade. The sad part is that the majority of Western citizens are not convinced by the phony crusading of their governments and media, nor of the alleged threat of Islamic extremists. Most people realize that whatever Islamic extremists operate, they are either a creation of Western intelligence or a backlash against Western imperialism. That is why Obama’s avowed election promises to end America’s criminal wars and reset foreign policy on a more reasonable, democratic footing got him elected. The even sadder part is that as Obama’s ineffectual election shows, the US (and its Western lackeys) is being driven further and further into bankrupting, criminal wars of aggression that will cause more victims of violence and social mayhem at home and abroad. And it’s all because democracy in the US (and elsewhere in the West) is non-existent. The US is a dictatorship. And Mr Obama is too ineffectual (save for the masters) and irrelevant to be even loosely called its dictator. Finian Cunningham is a Global Research Correspondent based in Belfast, Irelan

No one alive to tell of how it was

 The last ten years of politics in the U.S. has been filled with so many lies that it the level leads me to believe a live in a bad distorted painting.  Starting with the Florida recount, to 9/11, the Iraq War, the sheep lines at the airports, the created housing bumble, the closing of 50,000 manufacturers at the taxpayers expense, the voting machines in the state of Ohio for the second stolen election, the Wall Street gift from taxpayers.

The great hope of change never came with the election of Obama.  He maybe smart but he is not wise.  Or maybe he fears assassination, it is a way of keeping people in line.  It is pretty well know that 'the group' met with him.

Now we are left with a nation with no one remembering the great depression.  No one alive who speaks for the true history of pain, death and hunger to these foolish people in the plastic globe of Washington.  Napolean said the poor don't murder these people because of religion, well, he really said they don't murder the wealthy because of religion.  I wonder if it is time to scare the hell out of some power folks in Washington and Wall Street. Oh, don't be shocked I think that, our water, our food and our air poisoned by their policy.  Life and death is of no concern to them.

Wisdom comes with smarts and experience.  That places lack men of wisdom and this nation will have to learn about hunger and death because of it, again.

Crumbling nation ruled by ignorant people will activate the population, one day the thing will explode into change.  Just as I told a friend ten years ago you can't start a war and put it on a credit card, give a tax break and put it on a credit card.  Ten years later, ten years later grandma doesn't need medicine or Social Society checks because we should pay the bill on the war.  There is no wisdom in Washington.  When the NYT food section features a story about trash food and the benefits of it, it is time for a revolution!

News from Japan, Soup is the answer

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25327

Miso Soup everyday.  Boil a cup or two of water with 1/4 cup of veg in it---garlic scapes (they are coming in now), chopped green top onions, sea weed(buy right not in the store as in the future they will be contaminated), carrots, anything.  Then shut off the heat and add a teaspoon of Miso per cup of water. Miso should never be boiled.  Now you have a broth to drank.  Make it small batches, that is better than saving and warming up later.  Miso can to added at the last minute to any soup much like you would add chicken or beef base to a soup.

Miso Soup and Sea weed are the two items that saved people from cancer after the bombing of Japan 60 years ago.  

Other safety tips, don't drink milk or dairy products produced locally, sea food and meat is now on a list of food to avoid and don't exercise or play outside during rainy days.  Frankly, there is no other day to deal with this event that I have read about.

It is a stand still season.  The length of the days change, the calendar moves each day,  but the temperature is at a stand still. Last week there was no rain nor was there any sun.  This week looks to be about the same.  The temperature is in the 60's range, the nights drop about 10 degrees.  It varies so little that warmth to the skin by sunlight is remembered and discussed over dinner!   Good for growing pea, spinach and potatoes, I assume but a challenge for all of us that wanted stone fruit or tomatoes.

I have created hoop houses for my tomatoes.  I sense in late winter, it would be a false reference to say early spring as we did not experience that this year,  my only hope, was a hoop house.  They are very easy to create and inexpensive with reuseable material.  Hoop houses are the answer to location but they also present special skills needs by the gardener. 

Tomatoes grow ideally with day time temperature of 70-75 degrees and night time no colder than 65 degrees. A little humid and a light breeze to vibrate the plant will help with the pollination to make for the perfect picture.  Strong sunlight will develop strong fruit, so that should be mentioned.

Now under cover my plants are growing.  I lift the plastic ends to my hoop house each day to create a little air flow but is it enough?  Should I gently shack my plants each day around noon, the best hour for pollination?   Should I add a light to the hoop house to bright up the environment?  Do I simple wait the 60 to 80 days and see what developed?  How much do I fertilizes?  Will the egg shells and the worm tea be the magic for these plants? 

Best pocket in the world

Two events in the last week in this area are worthy of mentioning, YES! Magazine had a 15 th anniversary party in Seattle and the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup.  Both reflect the changing society that is not covered by most media.

The speakers at the YES! event were internationally know experts on the global climate changes and the social movements that are grass root and frequently ignored by popular news outlets. The website is  http://www.yesmagazine.org/about/15-years-of-yes.  This magazine is positive and hopeful in a time when most of the news only prints stories of doom.  This magazine talked years ago about buying local. They showcase the individuals that are leading the way in thinking and acting out ways to control their own lives.  One of these people is Bill McKibben founder of the 350.org.   I find him to be a balance to the newly elected 100 congressmen that all believe in Creative-ism, don't believe in Climate Change and feel to default on the National Debt will probably not affect the world economy. The source of sanity and change has to be with the population at large, with thinking like that in our national capitol.

A couple facts that McKibben shared should give all of us pause.  The planet's warmest temperture was recorded last year, 129 degrees in Pakistan.  I have to ask myself, what is the temperture that humans can no longer survive living in a region?  Moscow last year had 8 days with 100 degree temperatures and the Russia government realized that they had seen a change serious enough, to hold on to their wheat reserves.  They no longer will export wheat.  The earth has warmed one degree and the Arctic cap has melted. What will happen if it goes two more degrees higher? When will the earth changes be enough, for our government to act?   Local governments are acting but there is no large national movement yet.  Seattle was the first city to sign the Kyoto Treaty and the city has moved beyond that requirement.  All of us gardeners in the Pacific Northwest are aware of the 10 degrees cooler temperatures this spring and double the amount of rain in recent months. I feel there is a pocket of like minded thinkers living in this corner of the planet sense the change and are acting on it.

A world where we don't know the source of our food, who grew it, who processed it or made it available for us is a disconnect.  A world where we don't know who made our clothes, our shoes, our furniture, our vehicles, our drugs, our amusements is a world of disconnect.  In our hearts, all of us suffer from the lack of knowing, this is affecting our health and our spirit.  YES! MAGAZINE opening talked about this as an issue.   All of us need to be on the path of simplifying our lives and connecting to daily matters that touch us physically and emotionally.

One of the highlights of the Mother Earth News Fair for me was listening to a gardener from Salt Island.  Linda Gilkeson quickly explained why residents of this part of the world can grow food year around in an easy to do manner.  BACKYARD BOUNTY lays it out with charts and suggestions while always practicing organic methods.  Gilkeson is a practical gardener for this climate with no double digging, little weeding, mostly natural ways amending  the soil and routating crops.  She pointed out her favorite blue chair as her favorite spot in the garden.  I have my grape arbor and my napping spot, this woman was talking directly to me. 

Recently, I was talking to my grandson, Ahman, while tending to my worm box.  "I love my worms, Ahman, they give me the best tea in the world for my plants," I said.  "Grandma, you have so many things you watch grow, don't you.  The chickens, the worms and all those plants in the garden, your fruit trees.  You just like to see things grow, don't you." 

"I guess that is true, Ahman."

The last show

           Oprah is having her last show today.  I have been watching her more this season-her shows have bumped up in quality from the last few years.  The young producers, I think, had been going to a younger audience and lost my interest.   Watching the last two days I realized I'm living in a raciest country because I noticed black faces that turned out for this farewell special....I should not notice that, but yet, I do.   As the museum director one told me, she was an archaeologist. "we all like our own tribe".  I remembered that while watching the show yesterday.

              Even at that--few people have had so much influence in this nation on attitudes about women's rights, sexual abuse/parental abuse, forgiveness, importance of education and reading.   Oprah, from Mississippi, the lowest of the backward states (if you have ever been there, it is like a foreign country) she changed and influence these topics.  The thing I always liked about her, she called us to be our best selves and told us we have the power to do it. 

              Few morals, I can think of, match her achievements in this time and place. 

              It will be interesting to see her next chapter.

Family of crows

I tend to walk with my morning coffee with my head focused down in the garden.  Each morning now the family of crows that have taken up residence near the yard call out about my presence.  They fly from one tall fir tree to another with their loud calls discussing my walk.  I learn all this from a professor that is doing research in Seattle.  He as gone so far as to understand the difference sounds they make and proven that they recognize people.  That was a very clever project by have people tagging the birds wear certain masks and when these people appear again the following year, the crows call in very loud frighten manners.  The crows recognized the masks. The family of crows has my deep respect after hearing how complex, intelligence and caring the family unit is.  After my garden is up and growing better, I think I will bring my binoculars out and see if I can start to identify the difference flying neighbors of mine.

This year of weather has been matching or breaking records for rain and cold.  Understand that we hit 70 last week for a couple hours and if that did not happen, it would be the longest ever wait, for that temperature, in the spring.  So far, we are not going to hit it again this week, partly cloudy and occasionally showers and sun.

I have made two tepees this year for beans.  Partly, I like the structures and partly I like the flowers and beans.  The hoop house are working if you consider that some of my tomatoes are looking healthy and have blossoms.  I have inherited so much liquid and dry fertilizer from my brother, Phil that weekly I could treat my garden to the magic for the next three season.  Of course, the secret to not to over do it or you get green shop of horrors--as the play was all about. 

I get the feeling that I have done about one week's worth of catching up, that is encouraging, now I am working on the other five weeks I am behind.

My gardening, this missing spring, has been a challenge.  Add to that, the responsibility of caring for my brother's estate the few sunny days have been occupied by holding garage sales or loading and hauling items to the resale shop or used bookstore.  I now see an end in sight and how this job will be over by end of May.

Two hours here and there of garden work has my hoop houses built over two raised beds, there will insure some of my own tomatoes this year.  A few plants of brassica including cauliflower, a couple violet ones, Brussels sprouts and broccoli are doing well.  This year I have left a floating cloth over them for the cold and the usual egg laying pests that are out at this time of the year.  The thing I forget is the name of the white 'butterfly' but I know that is the one that leaves the eggs that produce the caterpillars that eat my brassica.  I rejoice when I am walking to the chicken coop and I see the flight of these one or two white beauties and see my cloth is in place. 

About 3/4 of my potatoes seedlings are in the ground.  I am learning about growing potatoes.  I am Irish enough to know that I must move the site to plant potatoes each years but I search each spring for a site and at the same time want to increase my space to this crop.  This year, I am going to invade the front yard.  I have had this floating idea for a couple years but there is a place sunny close to the house, good watering system there and some bare area ready for my hoe.  I need the day with the hoe and soon!

 Quinoa and soup beans are in my sights to get in the ground.  The trick is a juggling act if ones wants to raise ones own food, it  is to grow greens for the summer and enough out of the garden for that winter that can be stored easily.  My kale beds and supply of lettuce is doing fine, frankly, with more time I would clean out one of my current herbs beds and use that space for more root crops.  Back to the quinoa, I have started some seed on a heating pad in the house but it have been slow to develop.  I will plant most starts and a packet of this seed in the ground as soon as the temperature permits or by June first.   I read with interest that in the RESILIENT  GARDENER, Depp has given up on quinoa.  It is the best protein in the world so I am not there yet but this maybe the test year.  I would love to have a bumper crop enough for two season and grow it every other year. 

Winter is the season for soup making and I can see, taste and know that home grown beans are better than the store bought ones that are so old.  I read with interest people that have settled on a few soup beans that become their absolute favorite.  I am not there so I grown about six different varities.

Book Reveiw

Joan Dye Gussow is a woman that recently turned eighty so time has given her life experiences to write about, plus being well educated she is a pioneer in the field of sounding the alarm about our food.  She says people call her a pessimist often but she calls herself  a realist.

The book GROWING, OLDER is a wonderful book to read for a woman my age.  Gussow writes about her marriage in a reflective way that few women I have read have had the ability to do.  Parts of what she says about the relationship rings so true to my own marriage but I have never had the words to express them.  There were whole parts of their daily life she was in charge of because her husband did not like to deal with reality, make the hard decisions.  The constant need for companionship and occupying the same space is another aspect that she discusses very well.

There a couple other chapters that are particular favorites of mine, Zucchini and A Fate Worse than Death.  As most long term gardeners know, zucchini is a boring vegetable to deal with and chicken feed for some.  Since Gussow lives off of what she grows in her garden she has made it a point to be an interesting cook.  I copied the pages of the book out that include her recipes for zucchini!  I have already got one of those Costata Romanesca growing this year in my garden.

The fate she fear more than death is being put in the hands of doctors before her death.  She was a pre-med student so she has a strong understand of biology and chemistry.  That chapter should be read by all people over the age of 50.

I read this book from the library but it deserves a copy on my bookshelf, I am getting my own copy to reread and reread.

Local Community

We are constantly hearing the need for local communities.  The signs of this working are occasionally seen like what happened in Wisconsin or Michigan-people taking power to do something.  This article is worth reading and I want to share it here.

The Corporate State Wins Again

By Chris Hedges

25 April, 2011
TruthDig.com

When did our democracy die? When did it irrevocably transform itself into a lifeless farce and absurd political theater? When did the press, labor, universities and the Democratic Party—which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible—wither and atrophy? When did reform through electoral politics become a form of magical thinking? When did the dead hand of the corporate state become unassailable?

The body politic was mortally wounded during the long, slow strangulation of ideas and priorities during the Red Scare and the Cold War. Its bastard child, the war on terror, inherited the iconography and language of permanent war and fear. The battle against internal and external enemies became the excuse to funnel trillions in taxpayer funds and government resources to the war industry, curtail civil liberties and abandon social welfare. Skeptics, critics and dissenters were ridiculed and ignored. The FBI, Homeland Security and the CIA enforced ideological conformity. Debate over the expansion of empire became taboo. Secrecy, the anointing of specialized elites to run our affairs and the steady intrusion of the state into the private lives of citizens conditioned us to totalitarian practices. Sheldon Wolin points out in “Democracy Incorporated” that this configuration of corporate power, which he calls “inverted totalitarianism,” is not like “Mein Kampf” or “The Communist Manifesto,” the result of a premeditated plot. It grew, Wolin writes, from “a set of effects produced by actions or practices undertaken in ignorance of their lasting consequences.”

Corporate capitalism—because it was trumpeted throughout the Cold War as a bulwark against communism—expanded with fewer and fewer government regulations and legal impediments. Capitalism was seen as an unalloyed good. It was not required to be socially responsible. Any impediment to its growth, whether in the form of trust-busting, union activity or regulation, was condemned as a step toward socialism and capitulation. Every corporation is a despotic fiefdom, a mini-dictatorship. And by the end Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs had grafted their totalitarian structures onto the state.

The Cold War also bequeathed to us the species of the neoliberal. The neoliberal enthusiastically embraces “national security” as the highest good. The neoliberal—composed of the gullible and cynical careerists—parrots back the mantra of endless war and corporate capitalism as an inevitable form of human progress. Globalization, the neoliberal assures us, is the route to a worldwide utopia. Empire and war are vehicles for lofty human values. Greg Mortenson, the disgraced author of “Three Cups of Tea,” tapped into this formula. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Iraq or Afghanistan are ignored or dismissed as the cost of progress. We are bringing democracy to Iraq, liberating and educating the women of Afghanistan, defying the evil clerics in Iran, ridding the world of terrorists and protecting Israel. Those who oppose us do not have legitimate grievances. They need to be educated. It is a fantasy. But to name our own evil is to be banished.

We continue to talk about personalities—Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama—although the heads of state or elected officials in Congress have become largely irrelevant. Lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed. Lobbyists make sure you get the money to be elected. And lobbyists employ you when you get out of office. Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations. Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, in their book “Winner-Take-All Politics,” point out that the share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent. One in six American workers may be without a job. Some 40 million Americans may live in poverty, with tens of millions more living in a category called “near poverty.” Six million people may be forced from their homes because of foreclosures and bank repossessions. But while the masses suffer, Goldman Sachs, one of the financial firms most responsible for the evaporation of $17 trillion in wages, savings and wealth of small investors and shareholders, is giddily handing out $17.5 billion in compensation to its managers, including $12.6 million to its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.

The massive redistribution of wealth, as Hacker and Pierson write, happened because lawmakers and public officials were, in essence, hired to permit it to happen. It was not a conspiracy. The process was transparent. It did not require the formation of a new political party or movement. It was the result of inertia by our political and intellectual class, which in the face of expanding corporate power found it personally profitable to facilitate it or look the other way. The armies of lobbyists, who write the legislation, bankroll political campaigns and disseminate propaganda, have been able to short-circuit the electorate. Hacker and Pierson pinpoint the administration of Jimmy Carter as the start of our descent, but I think it began long before with Woodrow Wilson, the ideology of permanent war and the capacity by public relations to manufacture consent. Empires die over such long stretches of time that the exact moment when terminal decline becomes irreversible is probably impossible to document. That we are at the end, however, is beyond dispute.

The rhetoric of the Democratic Party and the neoliberals sustains the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour. Wolin writes, “By fostering an illusion among the powerless classes” that it can make their interests a priority, the Democratic Party “pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system.” The Democrats are always able to offer up a least-worst alternative while, in fact, doing little or nothing to thwart the march toward corporate collectivism.

The systems of information, owned or dominated by corporations, keep the public entranced with celebrity meltdowns, gossip, trivia and entertainment. There are no national news or intellectual forums for genuine political discussion and debate. The talking heads on Fox or MSNBC or CNN spin and riff on the same inane statements by Sarah Palin or Donald Trump. They give us lavish updates on the foibles of a Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen. And they provide venues for the powerful to speak directly to the masses. It is burlesque.

It is not that the public does not want a good health care system, programs that provide employment, quality public education or an end to Wall Street’s looting of the U.S. Treasury. Most polls suggest Americans do. But it has become impossible for most citizens to find out what is happening in the centers of power. Television news celebrities dutifully present two opposing sides to every issue, although each side is usually lying. The viewer can believe whatever he or she wants to believe. Nothing is actually elucidated or explained. The sound bites by Republicans or Democrats are accepted at face value. And once the television lights are turned off, the politicians go back to the business of serving business.

We live in a fragmented society. We are ignorant of what is being done to us. We are diverted by the absurd and political theater. We are afraid of terrorism, of losing our job and of carrying out acts of dissent. We are politically demobilized and paralyzed. We do not question the state religion of patriotic virtue, the war on terror or the military and security state. We are herded like sheep through airports by Homeland Security and, once we get through the metal detectors and body scanners, spontaneously applaud our men and women in uniform. As we become more insecure and afraid, we become more anxious. We are driven by fiercer and fiercer competition. We yearn for stability and protection. This is the genius of all systems of totalitarianism. The citizen’s highest hope finally becomes to be secure and left alone.

Human history, rather than a chronicle of freedom and democracy, is characterized by ruthless domination. Our elites have done what all elites do. They have found sophisticated mechanisms to thwart popular aspirations, disenfranchise the working and increasingly the middle class, keep us passive and make us serve their interests. The brief democratic opening in our society in the early 20th century, made possible by radical movements, unions and a vigorous press, has again been shut tight. We were mesmerized by political charades, cheap consumerism and virtual hallucinations as we were ruthlessly stripped of power.

The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most Americans will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word—more. They will continue to exploit the nation, the global economy and the ecosystem. And they will use their money to hide in gated compounds when it all implodes. Do not expect them to take care of us when it starts to unravel. We will have to take care of ourselves. We will have to create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and culture values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out. It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global, corporate dystopia. It is not much of a choice. But at least we still have one.

Copyright © 2011 Truthdig, L.L.C.

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

A naturalist speak for the earth

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24374

This article highlites the current and long term damage our military has done to OUR society, the planet earth and the individuals that were trained to be killers.  In this region, weekly there is a domestic violence case, often  family murder involved.  Read it, so the next time you hear a jackass say we have no money for health, education, roads, bridges, jobs, handicap, energy research, care for the elderly, you will remember this article and the companies that sponsor our war machine, their profits and their lack of paying taxes.

In the meantime, the Pentagon's budget is unquestioned!  It could be dropped by 85%!!  WE HAVE NO SECURITY PROBLEMS!

Note this article was written by a naturalist that lives in the state of Washington.

The Times are a changing

If one is to believe history, Christian doctrine change with the influence of one woman in Constantinople in the year 553.  It involves a woman named Theodora and her husband, the Emperor Justinian.  The struggle for power included political and the church and the destiny of the population under their control.  In the end, Theodora won a major change for Christianity, the doctrine of reincarnation was abolished.

 The idea of suffering in this life for some afterlife reward is very fine for those in control of a population.  It is control in the purest form.   Control either by governments or religions include power from above, not power from self choice.  If a soldier thought that for each killing he did for the glory of the state, he would have to suffer that pain himself, would he be so willing to go to war?  If a population believed that each act of kindness created a reaction of goodness who would be in control of the population?  Where would greed GO!

The jokes that are said and discussed about reincarnation seems to me made by people that have a fear of responsibility to take control of what they believe and want, in this life time.  It is easy to get a neatly packaged rule set and don't have to personally think about decisions.

Reincarnation was an accepted principle for most of the world during Theodora's time,  including India, Tibet, the Himalayas and China. Up to the sixth century even Christians were not opposite to reincarnation.  The idea that one is responsible for one's own destiny is very simple.  It is the third law of Newton's.  For every action there is an equal opposite re-action.  Or another way of saying, the golden rule or you get back what you give out. 

All humans have had the feeling of instant comfort on meeting a new person.  Is that memory?  All humans have a sense of being in a place or knowledge about what to do in a particular set of circumstances.  Is that a deep memory?

For years, I have been open to the possibility of reincarnation.  It makes sense that the people in my current life I have had an attachment to before.  My purposes and life lessons in this life, give my time meaning.  We are all on a journey to live a life of principle and learn to care for ourselves and others-golden rule.

I have many interests, so many, that it has to be, a collection of many life times that are part of me.  My love of art, gardening and cooking that is part of my soul.  My ease with children and the power of their wisdom is been known to me my whole life.   My interest in world travel is probable visiting places that give me comfort.  How could it be so random, where I have visited?  Why do certain stories of the past, I can not learn enough about?  Maybe I was there!

The time of Theodora and Justinian's were very troubling and violent but one thing remains, the Christian rule book was changed by a woman.
I think it is about to be changed back again with a new enlightenment.     

Can it be true

"""There is an old Chinese aphorism, which your articles illustrates perfectly: If you want to be happy for an hour, take a nap. If you want to be happy for a day, attend a banquet. If you want to be happy for a week, go on vacation. If you want to be happy for a month, get married. If you want to be happy for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, help others."""'''''

this was on a blog about Paul Allen and Bill Gates, it is the first time the Chinese saying had no gardeners in it!

I like the one about gardening better.

the new coffee can

I believe..........before the next election and maybe this fourth quarter of this year we will have a collapse of the US Stock market, the value of the US dollar, .........the housing market is falling monthly on the west coast and in Olympia, the cost of food and goods are raising monthly,  we are enter third unpaid/unfunded war, the congress refuses to regulate banks or wall street which collapsed in '07 putting the world finances at risk, congress refuses to tax the top one percent of the wealthy in this country as their wealth expands, the slide is on and will not stop until we see the big crash. 

this was written in March 2010 but I believe it to still be true.

"""""""""""With the US dollar increasingly perceived to be walking on shakier ground, and no significant signs in sight that the US will be able to pay off its debts without radical quantitative easing (i.e., effective devaluation of the dollar); continued unemployment levels near 10% and no short-term fix in the ongoing housing slump (more foreclosures expected throughout 2010 and 2011), more Americans are beginning to look north for investment opportunities that might provide a safer haven for their money.
And Canada is probably one of the best places American investors could park their money abroad.  Canada’s federal debt is actually lower than it was ten years ago, and percentage of debt-to-GDP is the best among developed nations (Germany ranking second).  It may be largely oil money, but there’s no denying that Canada is the new Switzerland: probably the best fiscally-managed country in the developed world.


I’ll repeat a few facts that certainly almost all Canadians will be aware of  by now:
1. Several of its banks were rated the safest in the world in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
2. None of Canada’s banks needed (or asked for) a government bailout.
3. Canadian banks are all trading at or slightly above their 52-week highs – even a month ago, before the big comeback rally started last year.
4. Fiscal health extends beyond the banking sector – right before the credit crunch and market crash, two of Canada’s provinces were completely debt-free (Alberta and Newfoundland) with a third (Saskatchewan) close behind.
5.  Canada also has a sub-prime housing market, but perhaps due to different regulations and a different culture of consumption, there was never the debilitating wave of foreclosures that hit the U.S.  Then again, there were no “NINJA” mortgages in Canada, either.""""""""""""


It is time to open a Canadian saving account.

the long slide

Seems all the noise about the government shut down is to cover the fact that we are ready to put BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN LIBYA. ,,,,,,,,,,,three unpaid for wars at one time.

just divide the country Libya in half and take the oil producing part for Europe and the gas consumers of the world,,,already!  Isn't that what a world power does?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

We need gas at $7 a gallon, a government shut down, transportation of food to come to a halt, maybe the citizens will raise up and riot and tell those clowns in the circus tent --- the show is over.  We can't reach the golden age until we get though this free fall.

Circus Tent

I get the sense in quiet one on one conversations, there are many people have lost confidence in our government.   The problems are growing so large with no honesty or facts being used in the discussion of solutions.  We all are in the magic world of the circus.


Simple things like the national budget, that "tent of fools" refuses to address the facts about the big spender, the Pentagon. It is off limits for deep cuts.  These corporations that build our war machinery pay for their political campaign costs.  The corporations start the think tanks, the foundations, pay for the livelihood of these performers in congress.  It has reached the point that few honest people can live in or get elected for the circus tent, our national capitol.

Don't let the facts get in the way of their beliefs.  Political beliefs should get respect.


Looking at the news out of Mississippi that close to a majority of the citizens still believe that inter racial marriages are wrong and should be define by law and stopped.  The black tar of racism is very alive in a state that is defined as Christian.  The "Tea Party" has been hijacked.  This racism, this narrow view of values is used by this pink skinned and red necked population that say they believe in the new testament, believe in justice for all.   Look at their candidates for president.

Don't let the Jesus get in the way of your beliefs. Your beliefs are sacred.


Medical errors in 2008 cost $17.1 billion and one in three patients encountered medical errors in the hospital. People in the circus tent in Washington want to save our medical system from change and believe we have the best in the world.  Because these fools in the circus tent can not look at facts and compare our system to Europe, Canada or parts of Asia we suffer the results.


Don't let the facts get in the way of your beliefs or medical profits.

Finally, let's believe our truthful government about radiation!  Let's assume their honesty is based on doing the right thing to help citizens of this country understand the risks and the dangers of nuclear fall out.   Let's assume they have our interests above the profits of nuclear power profits.  Let's assume the citizen panel of creating jobs in this country is not headed up with the CEO of General Electric, the builder of many of the world's nuclear power plants, and that he is concerned about our future.  Let's assume they will advise us.


Don't let your hopes get in the way of the facts.

Plums, Potatoes and Radishes

           As long as this particular winter seems to have been, spring is even more a season of time staling and standing in place.  The temperatures are not the issue as much as too many rainy days making the ground hold all these ponds around my area. They are the reminder that the soil is probably too wet for me to get excited about planting.

            The plum tree is fully in bloom in the front yard and is getting a lot of comments from John and the grandchildren.  I have seen one humming bird near it but no Mason bees. I am going to take one of my fine watercolor brushes and see if I have the touch to pollinate fruit trees.  I understand in China they hire people on a regular bases to do the pollinating of trees.

      I have sprouted some peas, radishes and spinach in the house on a heating pad.  They has made it to the raised beds but now wait for the warmth of the sun.  Just hanging out, I could say.

        Radishes has taken over my curiosity this year, this is the climate I imagine that they would do very well.  I shop at a little store front Vietnamese grocer and am very interesting in the vegetables I have no word for. The idea that I may be missing something that I could enjoy cooking and eating has me staring at them,  week after week.  This has lead me to buy Daikon radishes this winter and I am growing comfortable throwing them in soup and on salads.  I use the computer to find ways of cooking with them.  The Kitazawa Seed Company has three pages of radishes listed and each are described as if they were, each, the lead star in a movie.  There are Chinese radish, small radishes, Japanese radishes, Korean and giant white radishes plus radishes that are grown because their leaves are tender and good flavor.  I  want to serve myself a platter of radishes this summer of sorted colors and tastes, maybe photograph it and them paint them.  Don't they serve radish tea sandwiches in parts of the world?  The fact is this climate was not made to grow tomatoes, maybe radishes are the answer!

         On Friday, the afternoon was a teaser, the sun was out and it was warm and the memories of past springs and summers made everyone rush out of buildings to experience a new season.  My grandchildren and I planted some potatoes.  These potatoes were harvested from last fall and were in the garage and had sprouted eyes.  I viewed that as losers as far as eating but organic as seed potatoes to plant.   I was very careful to plant them in clean soil but after following that rule, I broke all the rest.  I followed Carol Deppe's theory, cut a piece with an eye and put it in the ground.  No dipping in stuff, no drying out, no spacing and measuring.  Put them in the ground.  Then I covered the whole area with some leaves that were piled all winter to protect my two figs trees. (That didn't work out so well)  As the weeks go by I will be checking my potatoes to see if they grow, if they need more soil build up and I will harvest a few very early as fingerling.   My grandchildren enjoyed the project for a couple rows but there were there long enough that they now know how to plant potatoes.  I want them to know how to grow their own food