When clothes lines are outlawed, only outlaws have clothes lines.

After years of watching enviously while my neighbor hung her laundry out to dry, I made a trip to our friendly neighborhood Ace Hardware and bought my own umbrella-style clothes drier. Mr Ether graciously installed it for me, and I hung up my first load of laundry this afternoon.

Not only has my neighbor had a clothes line, but last week I noticed that she has a special apron that she wears, with big pockets to keep the clothes pins right at her fingertips. My jealousy knew no bounds! So yesterday, while I waited for the first load of wash to finish cycling, I sewed a clothes pin apron. You'd better believe it, bub. It's like a carpenters' apron, only girly. My own design. You can see it hanging there to the right of the tie-dye.

Woo hoo. Some people really know how to have a good time!

In case you didn't know, automatic clothes driers are the most energy wasteful appliance in the house. And while other appliances -- washing machines, refrigerators, etc. -- have been engineered in recent years to be more energy efficient, there is really nothing that can be done to improve driers.

Fortunately, we have those stalwart alternatives -- solar and wind power -- that do an excellent job, cost nothing (except the price of a clothes line apparatus and some clothes pins) and leave your garments smelling fresh as a daisy.

I know that some communities have "covenants" that forbid things like clothes lines and compost bins. If you live in one of those places, this is your chance to practice nonviolent resistance. Become an outlaw! Put up a clothes line! What can they do -- foreclose on your mortgage? Put you in the stocks? Send you to Gitmo?

(You can also go here to buy a folding drying rack, which doesn't hold as much, but it works.)

Today, a clothes line. Tomorrow, backyard chickens!

Book Reviews: Casting a Wide Net (Part 1)

I finished 3 books this week. Sometimes I feel like a reading PacMan, gobbling up the yellow dots before the monsters get me. I have the stack of books that accumulated over the spring when I didn't have as much time for reading, and then I keep putting books on hold at the library as I find out about them. So QUIT recommending books to me, DARN IT! No, no ... I didn't really mean it. I LOVE reading. I LOVE talking about books. Here is number one (others to follow in separate posts.)

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Billed by The Boston Globe as an "absolute must-read for parents" I have to say that I think that this book may be a must-read for anyone concerned about the state of the natural environment. This is a book about reconnecting children with the natural world -- certainly the job of parents and educators -- but it is also about accepting that kids experience the outdoors in decidedly different ways than adults do, and that has to be okay. You, the adult, might want to go quietly, binoculars in hand, down the pristine path looking for birds. Kids, on the other hand, want to run, climb, touch, poke, dig, build -- all those same things we did when we were kids. And those are the very experiences that kids are lacking these days. Consider this quote, from a fourth-grader in California: "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

There are a fair number of depressing statistics in the book, but overall its message is one of hope -- that this is a trend that has developed over the last generation, and can be reversed; that there is renewal for everyone when you get outside; that it's fun, for goodness sake! I bogged down a little in the last third of the book, because it's kind of repetitive, but I'm very glad that I read it, and it certainly inspires me to institute some changes in my teaching practice come September.

I finished the book on Sunday afternoon, and Enriched Geranium and I went to the University Arboretum for a walk. Our arboretum has a large formal garden area with hundreds of crabapple trees and lilac bushes. It's heavenly in May! On a Sunday in June, threatening rain, there weren't a lot of people there, but there were two little kids sitting up in a tree. I was so thrilled to see them, although I expected someone to come up and yell at them at any moment. They weren't experiencing nature the "right" way!

This is a good book, even to read parts of it. It has some good quotes in it too.

Al Gore -- Nobel Laureate

What a nice piece of news to come home to today.

Modern Day Snake Oil

I'm sorry, but I find this just absurd.

First read this article about new cholesterol-lowering snacks coming on the market. Then walk or bike to your nearest public library or independent book store, and pick up a copy of Barbara Kingsolver's newest book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Kingsolver's family carried out an experiment of spending a year eating foods that were almost exclusively locally grown and in season. While you may not feel you can go the extent that Kingsolver did, eating closer to home and less processed foods is within many people's reach.

What I have read in various sources is that, prior to the widespread use of hydrogenated fats and high fructose corn syrup in this country, back when people consumed more whole milk and butterfat, the incidence of high cholesterol, heart disease, and stroke was far less than it is today.

Then add in the energy it takes to produce the enhanced super-snacks: fossil fuel energy, intellectual energy, energy spent marketing the stuff -- which may or may not do what it claims to do. Is it worth it?

I do most of the shopping and cooking in our household. Over the last 10 years I have been adding in more and more locally and organically grown foods. I've tried having my own garden, have been a member of various CSAs (community supported agriculture -- farms where you buy a share and then get a box full of vegies each week throughout the growing season) and one season was a member of Zephyr Garden about which my friend Poodle Doc writes so deliciously from time to time. This year I'm doing most of my shopping at a little farmers' market every Tuesday evening, and we're blessed with a wonderful food co-op. And thanks to another friend, The Sminthophile, I just found out about a place that will deliver meat and dairy right to my door!

Anyway, for a long time I wouldn't necessarily admit that I was buying organic foods -- or I'd be apologetic about it, because it seemed posh and snooty. But I actually think it costs us less than if I was buying the amount of processed foods -- the frozen microwave dinners and so on -- that so many people buy. So I'm out of the closet [pantry?] in my eating habits.

Anyway (Danger *Warning*Bad Pun Alert!) it's food for thought.

Beyond Petroleum ... Isn't that special?

They've changed their name to something kinder, gentler, and greener. But we're not fooled. Click on the image to enlarge it and read about BP's plans for Lake Michigan. Or go here and take the No BP Challenge. Mr. Ether and I try to buy our gas at Citgo, which is Venezuelan state-owned petroleum. They're not perfect, I know, but given the alternatives I think they're better.

What do you want your money to support?

Madison (F)friend Margaret Krome has written the following essay. Food for thought.

Published on Thursday, July 12, 2007 by The Capital Times (Wisconsin)

Doing The Right Thing For Justice, Peace Costs

by Margaret Krome

Offer me a helping of potatoes and sugar snaps from a local farmer or a plate full of war and carnage, and I’ll take the vegetables, thanks.Invite me to sit on a cushion in a chair made locally from willow branches or let me settle softly into plush slave labor and environmental degradation, and I’ll choose the rustic chair and cushion.

None of my friends or family actively seeks to support war, impoverishment, or desecration of the earth. But what is indisputable is that most any product I purchase, unless I know its maker, has long supply chains in its manufacture that do just that. [my emphasis]

My point is not that farmers, even those in industrial production, support war or use practices that knowingly harm others or that furniture stores harm the environment or workers. They may or may not. But behind virtually every purchase, there are profound impacts, sometimes for individuals, but overwhelming for the broader society.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science says that of 20 major traded commodities, our nation consumes the greatest share of 11 of them: corn, coffee, copper, lead, zinc, tin, aluminum, rubber, oil seeds, oil and natural gas. Some of that consumption is obvious and wasteful, such as the 6 tons of rock mined to produce a pair of typical gold rings or the approximately 330 kilos of paper (around five trees) the average American uses each year. But much is hidden, because products are too complex to discern the impacts of our purchases.

Cars, for example. It’s not just the loss of life of miners in China and elsewhere or environmental havoc created to obtain metal for the car. Or the wars our nation fights to protect supplies of petroleum used to make plastics in the car. Or the labor abuses in developing countries used to assemble them. There’s no practical way to assess the environmental impact of one manufacturer over another.

We don’t understand the hidden world of power behind our purchase, and so we buy the model that looks best, drives most smoothly, and perhaps has good gas mileage.

From computers to clothing to musical CDs, the list of consumer products whose components have unknown environmental and social impact is virtually endless. Even some peace groups sell bumper stickers, mugs, key chains and computer mouse pads but give no information about the resources used in their manufacturing.

Where does this leave us — in guilt, passivity or self-reproach? Mostly we seem to ignore it and accept without question the marketing systems that obscure the impacts of what we buy.

I spent last week in a spiritual community with 1,500 Quakers at an annual gathering. I sang and ate with new and old friends, contemplating throughout the week the question of “Who is my neighbor?” For me, this has translated into a question of how to make consumer choices that support not only an environmentally sound but also a peace-based world.

My first decision must be forcing myself to decide whether I really need to purchase something. Can it be shared or done without? Second, given how well my junior high school home economics class trained me to seek the best dollar value for what I buy, I have to accept that not harming others I don’t know will cost more. Every time I buy a more expensive item whose provenance I know and support, I need to remind myself that I am buying healthier lives for others, a hope for environmental relief.

Current marketing doesn’t make this easy. Fair trade campaigns, organic food, and other certification programs are a first step in creating the peaceful world we want. And like “Build it and they will come,” I place my faith in the belief that if consumers communicate a desire to know, marketers of responsible goods will enter the marketplace to help us take more control over our impacts on neighbors across the world whom we will never know.

Food for Thought Regarding Biofuels

Mr. Ether and I, in figuring out ways to reduce our carbon footprint, have been discussing trading in our automobiles for one that can run on biodiesel. There is a biodiesel co-operative right down the street from our house, where they manufacture fuel from waste cooking oil. On a small scale, this seems like a viable and sustainable option.

Truthout has published an op-ed piece that tells a very different story about large-scale reliance on biofuels:

Have you ever tried to solve a problem only to discover that you made things worse in the process? This is happening right now with biofuels. We are on the road to disaster because the problem we are trying to solve has been framed inadequately. Harmful impacts from large-scale biofuel production are largely overlooked. And we aren't even addressing the right problem! The truth can be seen when we frame issues in the context of livability. (More here.)

I love the suggestion that we frame issues in the context of livability. Imagine what the world would look like if all decisions were made looking through that lens. It is a different way of articulating the Native American idea that you base decisions on how they will impact seven generations down the road.

Of course, one real answer to living sustainably when it comes to fuel consumption -- the hard one -- is to become less reliant on one's car. There are personal choices that people can make, but it also requires a societal paradigm and infrastructure shift. And the author of this piece argues that if we as Americans simply shift our fuel reliance from fossil fuels to so-called biofuels, that change in infrastructure won't happen.

Very interesting article.

Angelic Troublemaker 3

Before Al Gore became synonymous with global warming, Barry Commoner was warning the public about the delicate condition of planet Earth. Long associated with the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College, Dr. Commoner has for decades been agitating to restore ecological balance to the biosphere, whether by outlawing nuclear testing or spreading the practice of recycling. Time magazine once nicknamed him “the Paul Revere of the environmental movement.” (read the whole interview)

I cast my first ever vote for president for Barry Commoner in 1980.

Honey Bees

I've been thinking a lot about the honey bee die-off. Until I get too freaked out. Then I have to stop. One of my trains of thought goes like this: If factory farming is leading to mad cow disease, e coli bacteria in organic spinach, bird flu, melamine in pet food, etc. etc., does it have anything to do with the honey bees dying?

And if it does, wouldn't part of the solution be for beekeepers to start spreading their hives over a larger geographical area, perhaps even keeping backyard beehives the way some people keep backyard chickens? (My husband was delighted when I told him I no longer wanted chickens in the backyard ... until I told him I wanted a honey bee hive.)

So I felt quite smug when I got the latest issue of The Hightower Lowdown and found this little piece. Nor was I surprised to see that, as is the case with so many other foods, agribusiness has been breeding "super bees" at the expense of biodiversity, so if a virulent strain of a virus comes along, the entire population collapses. Really smart when you're talking about a major link in the food chain.

Are humans (or should I say, Americans, as in the U.S. variety) going to learn or is it too late?

The Buzz

Now THIS is truly frightening.