Take a Walk in Sudanese shoes

Fellow traveller,

Sudan is part of the great OTHER--
the easy-to-be-distracted-from pain of people living in Darfur.

I would like to ask your help, though.

Take a walk

outside your own daily struggles, and if you can-- take a minute today, make a call on behalf of people who have no other hope than our voices saying no more genocide in Sudan.

Save Darfur

Thanks for stopping by.

TSC


TSC

Salmon Nation gets a Boost from Columbia Winery

Good news!

Columbia Winery is launching a campaign to protect wild Pacific Salmon in April.

Good Nature's Pacific Salmon of North America artful portrait of all five wild salmon by award winning artist Dugald Stermer graces the premier Northwest winery's case cards on display nationwide.

Columbia Winery is contributing a portion of sales from this campaign to the good people at Ecotrust who are working hard to protect Salmon Nation.

Spread the word. Saving salmon habitat means saving our habitat -- and the pleasure of grilling a wild Alaska King salmon on a warm summer day, glass of Columbia Winery pinot noir (for me) in hand. Circles of sustainability should all be this tasty!

"The Pacific Salmon of North America print captures the tenacity and beauty of Pacific salmon and steelhead like no other. It should hang in schools, homes, and the offices of elected officials -- to give notice that these fish are worth fighting for!"
Guido Rahr, Executive Director, Wild Salmon Center

best fishes,

Timothy

Resurrection poem by Wendell Berry

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright ® 1973 by Wendell Berry, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

Save Darfur

You can change the world-- whenever I think about Darfur, I hear my Granny's voice -- a real servant to others in the best of all ways -- with love and deep belief in the power of caring for others less fortunate.

She would say "There but for the grace of God, go I" -- so help yourself and someone you don't know in Darfur. Save Darfur

Thanks! And spread the word-- we can save thousands of lives by stpping genocide today. We shall overcome the madness.

basta.

Tim

Organic Inc. by Sam Fromartz

Sam Fromartz

Solid writer -- fine new book -- available at your favorite independent bookstore or Amazon

Natural Wonders: Smithsonian photo contest inspiring

The Love Nest
Smithsonian photo contest witnesses the miracle of life

Antje Duvekot -- Feeling great: Just had an Aurgasm

Great music needs to be played and heard often. Antje Duvekot brings soul, intelligence, and her melodic storytelling -- bearing witness to life, love, work and persistence.

Midlife poses frequent opportunities to pun, have fun.

Bless the good people at Aurgasm for turning me onto Antje Duvekot.

I have wished she would find her way out west -- wonderful lyrics, guitar -- reminds me of Joni Mitchell before she was famous -- when she wrote songs for Judy Collins and other far out people.

And guess what? She is playing Seattle this weekend: April 8 at Phinney Ridge Community Center.

check Antje out for yourself.

Enjoy.

Timoteo

The 23rd Qualm

23rd Qualm
(Written by a retired Methodist minister)

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy
term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding

Interesting artist: Good browsing for natural history, artwork, poetry.

Weird certification -- good/evil logo. Go figure.

Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding

Eyesight -- a poem by A. R. Ammons

Eyesight

It was May before my
attention came
to spring and

my word I said
to the southern slopes
I've

missed it, it
came and went before
I got right to see:

don't worry, said the mountain,
try the later northern slopes
or if

you can climb, climb
into spring: but
said the mountain

it's not that way
with all things, some
that go are gone

A.R. Ammons

Business' Roots in Biodiversity

(Art by S. Duranceau)

The Ecology of Commerce was written by Paul Hawken a decade ago. Do we really need a review about these basic connections between business and our life force?

Help me! We live on one planet. Biodiversity is the basis to life, to our wealth (the various kinds -- not just economic) and happiness.

People are alive. People create business.

Any questions about the loop? The basis of life, of our civilization, and the businesses running today is rooted in biodiversity.

Biodiversity Guide

From World Changing

Basta/

TSC

My Contribution to Climate Change: Traveling

We need to begin a rapid shift away from petrol to reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2) levels in the US. We Americans make up 5% of the world's population, and contribute 25% of the CO2.

I have been thinking of ways to change my CO2 exhaust, and figured a good starting point would be to simply calculate it.

I flew back to Boston from Seattle on business, then rented a car and drove to see my family in Vermont last week. We stayed at a downtown hotel, I took the Boston T or walked everywhere in Boston.

I found a site to help me figure out travel costs in CO2 --just to see what my contribution to climate change was in 8 days.

The site I used is from Native Energy -- see link below.

Seattle to Boston

Your travel CO2 emissions results

Auto Travel: 453 lbs CO2 0.2 Tons CO2

Air Travel: 3105 lbs CO2 1.6 Tons CO2

Rail Travel: 0 lbs CO2 0 Tons CO2

Bus Travel: 8 lbs CO2 0 Tons CO2

Accommodations: 282 lbs CO2 0.1 Tons CO2

Total: 3847 lbs CO2 2 Tons CO2

Stunning!

Calculator at Native Energy

Native Plants People Back Off! Burpee Prez says

From Sunday New York Times Editorial Page 3/19/2006:

George Ball writes that friends of native plants have gone too far-- calling us "botanical xenophobes." You can almost here him say "plant Nazis."

Never mind the $137 billion invasives cost taxpayers in the US, George.

Let's forget about the native animals crowded out when their native plant habitat is displaced by thick thorny aliens from Himalayas.

Is this essay by a leading seed company an indicator we nativistas are having some effect in making nurseries and seed companies stop bad practices?

Better to have Mr Ball join native plant friends of mine who have pulled butterfly bush out of river banks nearby.

If Burpee company's role in careless promotion of "any seed anywhere" mentality, shouldn't a portion of their profits go to paying for the eradication and prevention plans of every state in the country?

Just ask your local fish and game agency how much has been lost to loosestrife, for starters.

Native plants connect people to our fellow birds and bees and habitats they need. The seed and nursery industries should join forces with their green brothers and sisters on growing right plants in the right place. There is enough work to do together: growing native canopies in cities to encourage a cooler planet and lower CO2.

Read on:



Op-Ed Contributor
Border War


By GEORGE BALL
Published: March 19, 2006
Warminster, Pa.

THE horticultural world is having its own debate over immigration, with some environmentalists warning about the dangers of so-called exotic plants from other countries and continents "invading" American gardens. These botanical xenophobes say that a pristine natural state exists in our yards and that to disturb it is both sinful and calamitous. In their view, exotic plants will swallow your garden, your neighbors' gardens and your neighbors' neighbors' gardens until the ecosystem collapses under their rampant suffocating growth.

If anything suffocates us, though, it will be the environmentalists' narrowmindedness. Like all utopian visions, their dream beckons us into a perfect and rational natural world where nothing ever changes — a world that never existed and never will.

Native plants are the survivalists of the botanical world, and in the appropriate settings — wilderness areas, home and botanical gardens, public parks and sidewalks — they bless us with their beauty and awe us with their tenacity. Our lives would be poor and grim without the strawberry, cranberry, columbine and trillium. They've always been here, in the same way that Native Americans have been; only their arrival and settlement are more ancient.

Their presence illustrates a geologic time, about 8,000 years ago, when the glaciers receded and unimaginably vast deluges swallowed the surface of the future United States — an airplane ride over the Midwest reveals enormous lakes formed by even larger melted ice masses. As the landscape changed, the botanical world sorted itself out, leaving us with the hardy "natives." (It should be noted, though, that many plants now considered natives — like sycamores, magnolias and cinnamon — arrived from other continents, just as we did. They are products of adaptation.)

Like human survivalists, natives are also subject to exploitation by the horticultural equivalent of radical fundamentalists. The anti-exotics argue that gardens should be populated exclusively by native plants, as if the exotics were trying to enter the flower bed illegally. The consequences of such a stand could be dire. Should we eat no onions or garlic, apples or lemons; feast our eyes on no magnificent tulips or roses — all exotics of Eurasian origin? Should Asians not enjoy their distinctive peppers, tomatoes, beans, squash, sunflowers and corn — all from the Americas?

Indeed, the world's most popular root crop, potatoes, started life as a staple of the Andean people and achieved its first international fame as a slave food. By the time it reached France, the "earth apple" was a delicacy likened to truffles; their flowers were featured in tiaras of court ladies. Exotic indeed.

Should we deprive ourselves of petunias, begonias, impatiens and hollyhocks — not a one of them "native"? Must we, on pain of being cast out of the garden as horticultural pariahs, deny the elephant his peanuts? This wouldn't be merely ridiculous. It would compare with the denial of human immigration on grounds that certain ethnic groups breed in numbers "too prolific" for the existing elite to tolerate. Imagine, then, a horticultural ruling class. No "invasives" need apply: let the lily find another valley. Such prohibitions of exotic plant species demonstrate only an elitist snobbery that is as dangerous to a free society as it is to a free botany.

No one, and certainly no gardener, grows truly destructive invasive plants in his garden. The devastating kudzu in the South, star thistle in the West and purple loosestrife in the East were accidental introductions from Asia, most often mixed with the feed and bedding of livestock. Yet the pro-native, anti-exotic partisans also wish us to stop enjoying the charms of harmless and beautiful plants like Queen Anne's lace, yarrow and chicory. Aside from requiring a bit of weeding, exotics are safe as milk, unless one considers gardening a chore rather than a passionate hobby. If so, forget the forget-me-nots.

Let's welcome, as spring arrives tomorrow, as many huddled masses of flowers, herbs and vegetables as can fit in our unique melting pot of a nation, unrivaled in its tradition of lush diversity and freedom to grow rampantly.

George Ball, a former president of the American Horticultural Society, is the president of the seed and plant company W. Atlee Burpee & Company.

NY Times Editorial Page http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/opinion/19ball.html

Free Speech online around the world

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Tell the folks at EFF you support their work to keep fighting for internet freedom here at home, China and elsewhere around the world. And please organize your own campaigns against Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and the other corporate American companies promoting censorship.

Yahoo gets a special award in the Police State Hall of Shame -- they turned in Chinese activists who are now in jail. Their crime? Promoting democracy in China in blogs. Chinese government officials told Yahoo to turn over blog records -- and Yahoo did just that!

Solar power meets climate political crisis

Friend,

There is no climate crisis.

There is no creativity crisis.

We are living in a time of political crisis.

We are looking around, hoping for the political fix that only you and I can provide to avert climate change from destroying civilization.

We need a field guide to social change that protects species including our own -- from ourselves.

The photo above is taken from a story in the New York Times on oil rich Chad's inability to distribute oil wealth to aid its citizens living in poverty.

It is a vivid picture of hell on earth.

The oil companies record record profits, yet do as little as possible to distribute this wealth from Chad and other countries back to its people.

It seems to me that we cannot talk about environment without confronting poverty.

And we can't confront our carbon addiction and the twelve or twenty steps necessary to break it without some easy to capture measure and accurate taxes to cover the carbon's cost.

Finally, there exists today a bright, green and healthy future for all of us.

The crisis we are living in right now is a crisis of taking back political power now in the hands of a few energy companies that is throttling change. Capitalism has been hijacked in the name of greed -- and it is time to take it back from the big oil companies and auto industry that are invested in status quo death spiral heat building carbon addicted behaviors.

Change can come in 5 years. We need a Marshall Plan similar to what has been proposed by Jay Inslee in Congress and the Apollo Project.

We can make it happen -- a note to courage you about solar power here.


It seems to me we have to stop calling gas stations gas stations. What should they be called so we connect more people to their deadly consequences?

I think of a campaign where this name we give gas stations gets printed on bumper stickers and stuck to gas pumps across the country.

Similar to the "I'm Changing the Planet -- ask me how!" bumper sticker popular a few years ago.

Ideas? Leave them here in comments.

with love all around,

Timothy