Blogs

I think there are three principal classes of what i call catastrophic risk technologies:  nuclear, genetic modification, nanotechnology.  In each of these three cases the technopiles and capitalists are mostly winning, though we are pushing back in nuclear.  In each of these three cases, relatively accessible mistakes can have global detrimental impacts.

we are what we eat

As of this writing there are 395 protests worldwide scheduled for this May 25th (this coming Saturday) against Monsanto for its work on genetically modified organisms.   Of these 230 are in the US, which seems appropriate given Monsanto is a US creation.  Fortunately, i will be able to go to the protest in Washington DC.  [Which in this case is especially aptly called Death City]. Stay tuned for pictures of this protest.

Things look bad.  We are at 400 ppm carbon in the atmosphere.  The Syrian civil war hurls clusters of lit matches into the tinder box of the Middle East.  And fear of terrorism in the US allows cities to be shut down while the police search for a crazed teenager.

But despite this, and many more depressing examples, there are compelling cases to be made to be hopeful.  Especially, if that hopefulness gets you off your chair and into action.  The case for hope is well made by Rebecca Solnit, who is the sister of my dear friend and activist titan Davd Solnit.

In her new book Too Soon to Tell, the Case for Hope she makes the following point.

Reblogged from Running in ZK:

I moved to Twin Oaks about 12 years ago, and about four years in, it became apparent to me that I was going to be a parent (the rapidly swelling midsection of my partner helped to tip me off).  So I figured, as long as I was going to be raising a kid or two on the farm, they might as well be farm kids.  

I moved to Twin Oaks about 12 years ago, and about four years in, it became apparent to me that I was going to be a parent (the rapidly swelling midsection of my partner helped to tip me off).  So I figured, as long as I was going to be raising a kid or two on the farm, they might as well be farm kids.  In my mind, I had visions of old fashioned rural existence, with all the little ones pitching in to slop the hogs and weed the ‘tater patch.

A few months passed, and I found myself the father of a son.  A few more years passed, and I found myself the father of a second son.  A few more years passed, and I realized that it can be easier to envision having the kids help out on the farm than it is to actualize that vision.  For one, Twin Oaks can be a daunting place for child agricultural labor.  The garden is not in fact a particularly child-friendly area.  Our “farm” area is full of scary machinery and whirring blades, the cows are enormous and stompy, and the milking area is also full of intimidating machinery.  Plus, in order to get the kids involved with these areas, I would also have to be involved in the areas, which (aside from the occasional garden shift) wasn’t the way my work scene seemed to be working out.

Then, I had a revelation– chickens!  Chickens are far less intimidating than cows, far more durable than tender seedlings.  They’re cute (if you’re into that sort of thing), tasty, and provide eggs (which have provided roughly half of my kids’ total caloric intake over the course of their lives). Plus, taking care of the chickens worked well with my childcare schedule– I’d have the kids on my “chicken chore” days, and chicken chores on my “me & the kids” days.  And what could be more ideal farm-childhood-picturesque than hardworking children feeding the chickens, collecting eggs, and generally making themselves useful?

We’re cutting hay! In order to support our cattle over the winter when fresh grass isn’t so plentiful, we make hay in the summer. The first hay cutting, of three, usually takes place in early May, as soon as there’s a window of dry weather forecasted. It always feels like it should be a holiday, celebrated with a little festival. Warmth! Bounty! Tractors! It’s fun, though I don’t know if most people are as excited by it as I am.

I’ve only helped out with hay a little in the past, but being on the regular crew is a dream job of mine. Making hay is a four-step process: mowing, tedding, raking, and baling. Mowing is simply cutting the long grass. Tedding involves an implement that roughly resembles several big spiders, with “legs” that revolve rapidly, agitating the grass so that it dries out more quickly. The grass is then raked into windrows, which are formed into bales by the baler.

Here’s what this year’s first cutting looked like:

Tall grass fed by all the spring rain, ready to be hayed.

The mower

High South pasture after being mowed

Not all reactors are created equal.  In the global fight against nuclear power, there are some especially dangerous reactor types which clean energy activists take unusual pleasure in shutting down.  I remember the day (in June of 1997) i heard that the French SuperFenix breeder reactor was going to be shut down permanently.  I whooped so loud the folks in the WISE office all looked at me funny.

Monju – It took a fault line and 3 meltdowns to kill it

It looks like it will be time for another loud noise soon.  Japan’s Monju breeder reactor is sitting on top of an active fault line and this plus the countries new more strict nuclear regulator plus the unusually poor management of the plant, might just be enough to shut it down.

I hear there’s a list on the Today Board, about twenty names long, of those on the farm known to have the recent plague.  Mostly people started in the middle of the night, but there have been some later cases.  I know I was lying in bed, sleepless and moaning, wondering whether it was from the dumpstered iced coffee or unwashed hands on salad greens.  In morning, I found out I was not alone, though thankfully I didn’t have to vie for toilet time in my SLG the way they did in Harmony.

Symptoms (that I know of): nausea, puking, diarrhea, stomach cramps, headache, body ache, lethargy.  Side effects of dehydration and hunger.  Prevailing theory says virus.

Lucky for me, a few people checked in on me, and someone brought me dinner and my labor sheet.  Turns out someone also made an afternoon town trip to buy saltine crackers, ginger ale, and rehydration beverage for all the sickies.  In my one trip to the kitchen today, I saw the crackers with the masking tape label, “SICK.”  It was sort of adorable, and I might have got my camera for a photograph if it didn’t require an extra trip of slowly shuffling along between buildings while clutching myself.

Continuing to stay in bed is a good decision.

I have been a terrible mood for the last few days, which i will write about in a another post.  But this article on Buycott really made me smile.  The short version is this app (written by a lone 26 year old over the last 16 months) has the capacity to scan a bar code on something you are thinking of buying with your cell phone and see the corporate lineage of what you are considering buying.

This answers the question, which has been asked recently “How do i boycott the Koch Brothers or Monsanto?”

partial display of buycott screen example.

What is exciting (but potentially deceptive) is that this app reached number 10 in the downloads nationally within hours of it being released (tho they had to ultimately pull the droid version because of some bug).  The Forbes article points out that for some things (like conventional breakfast) nasty corporate domination as set in, in a way which will make it difficult to have any conventional breakfast.

Reblogged from Running in ZK:

Twice now I've scheduled time to dehorn the newest round of calves (we cauterize them).  Both times, Mushroom has wrangled them and held them down while I give lidocaine injections (which is rather stressful, really).  And then!  Ugh!  And then we call it off.

The first time, the vet showed up.  I had called her earlier in the day, and she showed up when she could without  a callback. 

Read more… 108 more words

One of the pieces of community life i dont touch, but i appreciate those who do. A story of when the dairy program gets rough.

Shopping for clothes has become one of my favorite activities living at Twin Oaks, and I get to indulge in it almost daily. Thanks to our sharing technologies, it doesn’t cost a dime. Commie Clothes is a shared bank of clothing at Twin Oaks, made up of donations from members, ex-members, friends of community, and whoever else wants to toss some clothing. The result is a hip, free thrift shop fifty paces from my bedroom. While the community does not begrudge anyone a large personal wardrobe, one is far from necessary. Any member may, as I do, pull clothes off the rack at the beginning of the day and toss them back the next morning, to be washed by a helpful communard fulfilling cos labor requirements for the community. While this creates more work for those doing public laundry, it keeps clothing free for members to use. This is a tradeoff  that follows from this method of sharing.

Twice now I’ve scheduled time to dehorn the newest round of calves (we cauterize them).  Both times, Mushroom has wrangled them and held them down while I give lidocaine injections (which is rather stressful, really).  And then!  Ugh!  And then we call it off.

The first time, the vet showed up.  I had called her earlier in the day, and she showed up when she could without  a callback.  This is usually great!  But not that time.  I was feelin’ so good about doing so many successful injections, and then I had to stop.  Ugh.  Threw me off for hours.

And today, Mushroom and I just happened to have a block of time free, so we decided to dehorn, and the goddamn power was out.  We didn’t notice it until after giving the injections.  Just in the barn!  The rest of the community? Totally fine.

I might even have to hand-milk tonight, which is not what I want to be doing.

Also my pants are covered in cow shit and blood.  Day in the life.

DH has a yellow thing.

Twin Oaks’ writing culture appeals to me. Mostly. We have a variety of structures in place to write to each other here; optimistically, this allows people to get in touch faster, communicate to a broader swath of the community (most of our written infrastructure developed pre-internet, of course). The darker perspective, and one I don’t really buy most of the time, is that we wish to avoid face-to-face communication with one another, so have created elaborate systems to not have to do so.

Woowooealistically, it has been pointed out that Twin Oaks, “born” on June 16th, is a Gemini, which in astrology is the sign noted to be most communicative, especially using written language. (Incidentally, June 16th is also Bloomsday, the date in which James Jocye’s Ulysses is set. On at least one occasion, our anniversary celebrations included a reading from the novel, and one time a group of a few folks, including myself, made vows to read the whole book by the following June 16th. I did not succeed, though it turned out I was in good company in my failure.)

The last day for our Early Bird Discount will by May 31st, so if you know you’re coming you should register by then!

Current rates can be found here.  Basic rates for staying Friday and Saturday nights are $75 for camping, $155 for the Sophia House retreat center, and $175 for the Aurora Visitor Cabin.

This is how you may look if you miss the Early Bird Discount.

Rates will increase by $15 on June 1st! That’s $15 more Friday and Saturday nights.  The additional fees for staying additional nights will also go up by $15 each.

Rates will go up again 1 week before the event.

The structural core of the new SESE headquarters is a timber framed skeleton. Timber framing is the traditional method for building in wood, only being replaced by modern stick framing in the early 1800?s when the development of industry made the cheap production of standard size wooden lumber and pounds of cheap nails possible. Timber framing, in a relatively well forested area such as our own, makes the use of local wood, even wood from our own land, possible. We decided to incorporate timber framing into our new office for a few reasons.

1. We want this building, SESE’s new home, to gel with SESE’s emphasis on regional heritage and empowering people to provide for themselves and their local communities. Timber framing in this case allows us to use local wood milled by local millers to build something showcasing a bit of regional building heritage.
2. The large posts and beams inherent in timber framing allow for large open spans between horizontal posts which works particularly well for straw bale walls. This is because the posts can be embedded within the straw bales with a minimum of notching of those bales (we only have to notch every 12 to 16 feet rather than every 16 inches as we would with a stick frame).
3. Exposed timber framing is not only a functional part of the building’s structure but is also quite beautiful and visually impressive. And what, after all, is life without beauty?
4. It looks like a lot of fun to build!

The timber frame in progress…

What is especially satisfying it to bump into an organizer who has complimentary skill sets with another organizer.  So it is with Irena at Acorn.  She is good at staying on task, definitely one of my weaknesses.  We work together on several things, the Communities Conference, the mechanics of the Seed business and most recently on the UVa dumpster dive.

Irena kept pushing me to work with the gal who runs the sustainability program for UVa, and thus got us pre-qualified for Chuck It for Charity, which is UVa’s answer to the growing dumpster diving “problem” that they face at the end of the academic year.  But to understand this “problem” you need some back ground.

All the attire, courtesy of UVa dumpsters.

UVa is a large affluent school in Charlottesville, the nearest big city to Twin Oaks and Acorn.  The academic calendar is design so that the last day of exams is the day before all the students need to be out of their dorm rooms.  So of course all of the students carefully manage their time so that they get their studying done for their exams early enough so they can pack all their stuff in time for the move out deadline.  And if you believe this, you apparently never went to college.

Twin Oaks has many different jobs you can do — indoor and outdoor, domestic and income-producing, manual and sit-down. The diverse work scene is a selling point to many people who decide to move here. They are tired of doing the same job 40 hours per week. At Twin Oaks, almost no one does one job all the time. Still, new members tend to have more diverse work scenes than members who have been around longer. The trajectory seems to be that after a few months, people realize which jobs they like the best and focus on those. Toward the end of my last membership, I was mostly doing tofu packaging and working in our community garden.

sage I labeled for the workshop

Since I am just returning from PAL, I don’t have a “work scene” yet. In the last week, I’ve gotten to do some jobs that I would never had done when I was preoccupied with garden and tofu. For instance, a few days ago, I labeled some plants for Hildegarde’s herb workshop that’s coming up in a few weeks. In my two years of living at Twin Oaks, I’d never worked in the herb garden. It was fun.

Reblogged from Running in ZK:

So, you know the deal, we get labor credits for all of the "commune useful" things we do, one hour of credit for every hour worked, all that good stuff.  Some of what I do definitely feels like work.  Indexing feels like work, especially on a sunny spring day.  Gardening, when it's unpleasantly cold or hot, feels like work.  Loading the tofu truck feels like work.  

Read more… 432 more words

Ezra talks about the curious nature of work on the commune, and how sometimes it feels real (as in difficult and potentially undesirable) and other times it feels great (like when he gets to grill meat). Also details of how the Twin Oaks grilling situation has improved over the last year.

So, you know the deal, we get labor credits for all of the “commune useful” things we do, one hour of credit for every hour worked, all that good stuff.  Some of what I do definitely feels like work.  Indexing feels like work, especially on a sunny spring day.  Gardening, when it’s unpleasantly cold or hot, feels like work.  Loading the tofu truck feels like work.  Some things are “work,” but don’t feel entirely worklike:  hanging out with my kids, gardening when the weather is pleasant, delivering the tofu once it’s loaded.

Which brings me to cooking.  I cook at least once nearly every week I’m on the farm.  Sometimes, when the weather is lovely or I’m feeling uninspired, cooking feels like an “I’d rather be somewhere else” job.  Most of the time, it feels like “well, I gotta be doing something, and this is pretty enjoyable” work.  Sometimes, it feels like “here I am just having fun in the kitchen playing with food and getting labor credit”-type work.  And sometimes, I get to grill meat.

For most of the time I’ve been at Twin Oaks, our outdoor grill setup was pretty pathetic.  I would call it third-world, except that any self-respecting third-worlder would have a better outdoor kitchen setup; I guess it was more fourth- or fifth-world.  Basically, it was a long metal tube sliced in half lengthwise, balanced precariously on some hunks of concrete.  Several strips of metal held the whole thing together, but also got in the way of building a proper fire.  To cook on this contraption, you had to squat down at an entirely uncomfortable height– the inconvenience of the whole thing was an effective deterrent to outdoor cooking.

Then, about a year ago, ex-member Rick built us this beauty:

i missed the Dominion Resources shareholder meeting this year after having attended faithfully every year for perhaps half a dozen.  Perhaps CEO Tom Farrell missed my annoying questions about how the utility which i own two shares of continues to waste money on plans for another reactor at North Anna, which will likely never be built.

I was not able to be there to gloat over the fact that Dominion was forced this month to close the Kewaunee reactor in Wisconsin. i would be gloating for as the NY Times wrote about this plants closure:

The decision was viewed as an early sign that the wave of retirements of old generating stations across the Midwest is now stretching from the coal industry into nuclear power, driven by slack demand for energy and the low price of natural gas.

Also in this NYT article Dominion’s Farrell said of the closure of the plant.

“This decision was based purely on economics.”