Act II

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?
Words & Music by Pete Seeger, 1955


The wheels on the bus are going 'round and 'round and it's comforting to once again experience the familiar pitch, lurch and sway inherent to these lumbering conveyances. Though it's not Priscilla or Julia on which I ride. Those twisted sistas each need a long hot shower, deep fascia massage and high-colonic cleansing. I'm on the Route 80 Golden Gate Transit bus for the short trip south from Sonoma to Marin to fetch my pre-historic 1993 Volvo 960 station wagon. Imagine, an automobile that runs on fossil fuel! How quaint.

In Petaluma, at the intersection of Petaluma Blvd. North and Washington Street, the former Sonoma County Bank building is now home to The Petaluma Seed Bank (Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company), an outlet for non-GMO, heirloom seeds. Like most mid to late 19th century and early 20th century bank architecture, the 1920s two-story granite building was constructed like the Rock of Gilbrator, as if to say to their clients...we aren't going anywhere. Those hapless customers could not have known that the Great Depression was waiting for them just down the block and around the corner.
 
Now, with its steel vault protecting heirloom seeds, instead of peoples' life savings, the formidable structure with its precious deposits would seem to say to the Big Six pharmaceutical and chemical companies - Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, and BASF...check it out, suckers! we aren't going anywhere, either. And while elegantly symbolic, it's going to take a much greater counter-insurgency to combat the methodical proliferation of GE crops. The Big Six, in cahoots with the Frankenfood 15, have already seized a significant portion of the global seed industry and you know what they say – he who controls the food supply controls the world. It would be one thing if organic farms growing heirloom varieties could coexist alongside King Corn. The stark reality unfolding, I fear, is alarming. According to Organic Consumers Association:
 
"It is now widely acknowledged that GMO crops are a leaky technology -- 
 that it to say, genetically-modified pollen is spread naturally on the wind, by insects, and by humans. No one except perhaps some officials of the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture were actually surprised to learn this. GMO 
proponents have insisted for a decade that genetic contamination could never 
happen (wink, wink) and U.S. Department of Agriculture officials went along 
with the gag. And so of course GMO crops are now spreading everywhere by 
natural means, just as you would expect."

So, you have to wonder who's in bed with whom? and how come the United States is so consistently and glaringly out of step with the rest the world's nations in issues of national importance. Like health care, the environment, and education. If Peru's Congress can approve a 10-year moratorium on imports of genetically-modified organisms, as they just did, why can't we? The answer my friend is not blowin' in the wind, written on subway walls or tenement halls. You don't need to read between the lines, ask a cabbie for directions or buy a vowel from Vanna White. 
  
Still need a hint? Okay. Allow me to direct your attention to Wall Street. No, not the financial district named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan and the epicenter for the now viral Occupy movement. I refer, rather, to the 1987 movie of the same name, in which Michael Douglas playing the role of Gordon Gecko, a greedy corporate raider, takes a young and impatient stockbroker under his wing. In a phenomenal reversal of art imitating life, consider the following excerpt from a scene:

Gordon Gecko: The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market. And you're a part of it. You've got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I've still got a lot to teach you.

Remarkable, isn't it. And you thought Oliver Stone plays fast and loose with the truth? Amazingly prescient is what he was.

Where have all the dollars gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the dollars gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the dollars gone?
To the richest 1% every One
When will we start to learn?
When will we start to learn?

It is now standard operating procedure for the power elite, the corporatocracy, to keep the as-yet-enlightened-and-mobilized 99% in the dark. To keep them dumb. Wouldn't want the population to get any fanciful ideas. So let's create the illusion that voting will change the status quo. Let 'em think they've got a free press and unbiased media. Ply them with half-truths. Dangle concepts like hope and change in front of them. Distract them with mindless reality programs. Tantalize them with gossip. Re-direct their attention. (Look! A puppy!).

If they were ever to connect the dots, they might come to realize they actually have more power than they think. And the last time that happened...[gasp!]... good God, man...there was a bloody revolution.

The American Revolution. Act II.

Live To The Point Of Tears

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,

A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
But I know one thing:
Each time I find myself flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.

That's life, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting,
But my heart just won't buy it.
Cause if I didn't think it was worth a try,
I'd have to roll myself up in a big ball and die.

That's Life, written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon;

from Frank Sinatra's 1966 album of the same name.

Many years ago, a cartoon appeared in Playboy showing an execution chamber, a death row inmate about to be strapped in for his last ride. On the wall behind an electric chair hangs a prominent sign that reads – “This is the last day of the rest of your life.” This witty spin on a popular aphorism of the time still makes me chuckle, and in light of my father's death last week, gives me pause - what if this were the last day of the rest of my life? Would I be doing anything differently than I am at this very moment, i.e., blogging about the last day of my life?  Good questions to ask ourselves from time to time. Are we really happy? Does happiness even matter? Is there something we ought to be doing that we are not. And if so, what are we waiting for? An invitation? In an earlier entry I explained the yet list of recovery. Those consequences of our addiction that have yet to rear their ugly heads. Now I speak of one's bucket list, a concept recently popularized in film. Those places, people and things we hope to visit, meet, do...before it's no longer an option, before we kick the bucket.

I know not how long I have on this mortal plane. I don't know if anybody does. Even if I do manage to live a righteous existence, a chunk of metal could still fall out of the sky at any moment striking me dead in an instant. It's as unlikely to occur as being struck by lightening, though I think you have my point.

Several chapters of my life have recently drawn to a close. The Sustainable Living Roadshow just concluded its most ambitious tour to date. It was a bigger-than-life experience and its completion has left a void. Last Monday morning, to clear skies, my father was laid to rest next to my mother. And while he had been unable to recognize even his own children for some time, it's categorically different

now that he's gone. Lastly, after 21 years of marriage, I have moved from the escrow period of having moved out to a permanent separation from my wife.

By any reckoning that's a heap of things to all happen at once. Am I hoping for a blue ribbon for holding it together? Special treatment? Extra credit for staying sober? Hardly. It isn't that I haven't cried. I have. It isn't that I'm not sad. I am. It's just I have a different relationship with emotions than I did before. Early in recovery, my sponsor counseled me that how other people felt was none of my business. He went on to further suggest that how I felt was none of my business. This last, a radical intervention at the time.

Back in junior high, a girl I've long since forgotten dropped a pearl of wisdom into the palm of my hand. She explained, “the deeper sorrow carves into your soul, the greater your capacity for joy”.      At the time, I thought I knew what she meant. Now I know. It's an ideal beautifully-expressed by Albert Camus when he admonished us to “live to the point of tears”.   From whence do these tears spring? The place in our hearts as described in song by Jackson Browne when he sung about a “fountain of sorrow, fountain of light...”.

The fact of the matter is I have a program in place – the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a reason why our parting utterance at meetings is “It works if you work it”. I worked it and now it's working for me. Recovery is only partly about addiction, though.  It is mostly about a better blueprint for living, in my case - building a stronger foundation upon which to build my dreams.

Happy and sad are but two sides of the same coin.

You just have to be willing to toss it in the air.

The End

 

My father, who had been in steadily declining health, took a turn for the worse early last week. While driving from Texas into New Mexico, Sustainable Living Roadshow's Right2Know Tour behind us, I received a call from my sister, the essence of which was... come now! The sands of time were running out.

In New Mexico, we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns, one of the largest known limestone caverns in the Western Hemisphere, its grandeur and awesome speleothem - stalactites, stalagmites and soda straws; curtains, ribbons and cave pearls - a paean to Earth's wonders, providing a reality check of how insignificant civilization seems in the greater scheme of things. I was reminded of something I'd seen in school, a time-line of geographic history described by a 24-hour clock beginning at 12:00 AM with the formation of the Earth. The planet is bombarded with meteors for over three hours, the origins of life emerging at 4:00 AM, single-celled algae forming at 2:08 PM, mammals arriving at 10:56 PM and us humans coming on the scene just 2 minutes and 43 seconds before midnight, or 11:58:43 PM. Yet civilization  with its human-centric ways has managed to sully this incredible miracle by poisoning its water, polluting its air, compromising its protective atmospheric membrane, all the while showing neglect, disregard, most of all, hubris. Shame on us!

We are solutionaries, as opposed to revolutionaries, educating through entertainment, engaging in conversations to find common ground, effecting change through peaceful demonstrations, pointing the way to a more sustainable future. Of the three political protests of which we were a part, two have converted in our favor. The Keystone XL Pipeline proposal has been sent back to the State Department for re-review, for all intents and purposes killing it. The Delaware River Basin Commission has refused to permit new hydro-fracking wells, delaying them indefinitely. Each of these the result of calmly-plotted direct actions. It gives us a reason to believe that the third, GMO labeling, is just down the road. That road probably in California next fall.

In Tucson, Arizona, while my road dogs discovered Dirty T's 4^th Avenue, I prepared the last meal I will cook aboard Priscilla this outing - an Italian-style vegan feast consisting of tofu in a rich marinara sauce, a crispy salad of Napa and red cabbages, red kale and red bells with a red wine vinaigrette and yes, served alongside the now ubiquitous quinoa. Though its procurement comes with a startlingly-heavy carbon footprint (it's grown high atop the Andes in Bolivia), it is rare among grains (though actually a seed) for its complete protein profile. I'm sold on it.

As the days had grown shorter, the inevitability of tour's end setting in, we had begun reflecting on the truly life-changing experience we'd collectively gone through. How difficult it would be, if not impossible, to convey to outsiders.

Thus it was an incredible gift that that Wednesday night, my daughter, a senior at the University of Arizona, got to experience first-hand the powerhouse of energy and talent, the wellspring of unbridled affection and unconditional love, trust and compassion that for a third of a year has been my daily bread. Between the throw-down, beat-box, hip-hop Ode to Michael, a grace to end all graces, and the parting human spiral hug, Anya got to witness what most will never be able to understand no matter how many blogs they read, Facebook photos they see, or YouTube videos they view.

The next morning Anya drove me to Tucson International for a flight to Los Angeles. My brother Robert picked me up at baggage chauffeuring me directly to my dad's condo on the aptly-named Ocean Avenue, just north of the beaches that were my summertime hangouts growing up. After asking everyone to give me a few minutes alone, I exercised my 9^th Step option with my father. I had always heard about people who hadn't gotten an opportunity to tell someone they loved them while they were still alive. The same applies to apologies and making amends to those harmed during one's active alcoholism. I had a chance to do just that.

I know not whether my words penetrated his Alzheimer's-ravaged mind. Perhaps that's not the point. As my sponsor used to remind me, we are in the efforts business, not the results business.

My father breathed his last breath that night. Tomorrow at 10:00 AM, he will be put to rest next to my mom, who left us 16 years ago. If I know her, she's probably kept a light on.

Magical Realism

Come fly with me! Let's fly, let's fly away!
If you can use some exotic booze,
There's a bar in far Bombay,
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.

Words and Music by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen
Recorded by Frank Sinatra, 1957


It was at speaker meetings in AA, where I first learned about a geographic, when an alcoholic up and leaves one place for another believing it will bring about a change in his drinking behavior. Surely, it must be New Orleans that's the problem. If I move to Cleveland I'll finally be able to control my drinking... if I can just get away from that wild crowd in Vegas, I can stop altogether... if I move to Maui, I won't need that morning drink to relax my nerves. Indeed, sometimes the alcoholic sees a noticeable improvement - for a week, a month, maybe even a year. However, you can't change a pickle back into a cucumber, as the saying goes, and eventually the drunk is right back where he started from.

This is categorically different than having a black out, when after a whirlwind weekend of nonstop drinking, a drunk ends up coming to hundreds, if not, thousands of miles away from where he had that first glass of wine in the hotel bar with a chum. Before becoming honest with myself, someone like me, in denial of his alcoholism, might've looked at somebody like that and said to himself, see, I haven't done anything like that, yet, so I'm not really an alcoholic. I haven't gotten a DUI, yet. I haven't been fired. I haven't lost my home. I haven't lost my family. We refer to that set of rationales served up as proof you're not really an alcoholic as one's yet list.

So now when I hear Ol' Blue Eyes sing about hoping on a jet plane and flying to India for a Singapore Sling, it stops and makes me wonder what might've been if I had continued to allow a fatal disease to go unchecked and untreated.

This weekend is a whirlwind of an altogether different kind. The Thrive Austin 11.11.11 Festival ended well past midnight with The Djembabes, the all-women, West African drumsong ensemble playing irresistibly-infectious, rhythmic accompaniment to a dance performance that was on fire...literally. This was the second performance of fire spinning (or fire twirling) we've seen this tour, the last in Roanoke.

No sooner were the fiery hoops and pois extinguished we started breaking down our set. We wrapped the Green Market with sidewalls, dismantled the carnival games, stowed away the sound system; then at half-past three, most of the crew called it a night only to be pried from slumber a few hours later. The apt phrase, death warmed over, comes to mind. Thank God for coffee – that's all I can say. We only had an hour or two to continue the breakdown and another several to load everything back into the box truck, trailer and the bays of the buses. After a brief drive to San Antonio, we arrived at our the next (and final) Roadshow stop. As soon as we got our bearings, we unlatched doors, lifted the bays and it was all hands on deck setting up for Sundays event. I made a simple savory scramble with mixed peppers, tofu with sauteed bok choy greens and a pot of dilled polenta with fresh basil. I had some pickled Jalapenos which which I mixed with chopped bok choy stalks, some cinnamon-laced Cinderella pumpkin and a roja sauce leftover from the night before, all of which I served as condiments.

It's now 7:37 AM, and I am up and at it again. I want to finish this entry before putting out breakfast for the still sleeping crew. Afterwards, I'm hopping on our Xtracycle to a fruteria down the road. Except for some tangelos Charlie Kain picked from a roadside tree in Austin and a few Fuji apples from the Whole Foods Market there, I am plum outta produce.

Texas is experiencing the worst drought in recorded history (since 1895) and so it is with more than a sprinkling of irony when you consider that up to today, all but two events of SLR's tour has been rained on. Some believe this is still more evidence of global warming and who's to say it isn't.

Now, far be it from me, a recovering alcoholic learning to wrest control from his ego and be guided by a higher power, to think I can make things happen by snapping my fingers. That said, a little part of me, the magical thinker, has his fingers crossed hoping somehow, someway, during the next 24 to 36 hours, the sky opens up and lets forth the downpour of the century.

In It. For Life.

 

Casting a pebble in a pond. The butterfly effect. Pillow talk. Seemingly minor things that ripple, resonate, sway. Cause and effect is often cloaked with uncertainty, though. As it is with complex issues and their outcomes. Sometimes it's not just one thing that creates change.

Take the Keystone XL Pipeline, for instance. The power was in the president's hands to prevent its construction and send a message to those who would put greed and profits over the health of our planet. Bill McKibben, and his 350.org stepped up and spearheaded the Tar Sands Action, a concert of civil disobedience at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sustainable Living Roadshow was there, as was I,

standing tremulous with emotion as the Capitol police closed us in with barricades, readying zip ties (the fast food of hand cuffs). After all was said and done, 1253 were arrested. We didn't take our foot off the pedal, though. After that, demonstrators were in Obama's face, following him around the country. And last weekend, a year from the day of the 2012 presidential election, 12,000 people encircled the White House. Yesterday, President Obama sent the pipeline proposal back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. (Had it been approved, a pipeline would have been built carrying dirty crude extracted from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, across the United States to refineries deep in the heart of Texas.) His decision had been teetering on the brink, threatening to totter toward Big Oil. Was the White House convinced by the logic of our rhetoric, the unrelenting barrage of direct action or the sheer numbers of citizens exercising their patriotic duty? All of it could have been ignored, discredited or drowned out by opposing forces. That didn't happen. The seesaw tipped the other way, and we can all give a sigh of relief - even celebrate. At least momentarily. For this is but one of many such issues on the docket. Once you pick up the mantle for change, your work is never done. That's just the way it is with some things. You're in it for life.

Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll

Don't you just hate when writers compromise their journalistic integrity with cheap, attention-grabbing headlines? Is it just me, but wasn't Andy Rooney's weekly, cranky postscript on CBS News' 60 Minutes the final straw? I mean, first the likes of Mike Wallace, Harry Reasoner and Ed Bradley spent 55 minutes casting dispersion upon our most cherished institutions and beloved public figures, alleging wrong doing in high places, going as far to suggest Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny didn't really exist, spoiling the innocence of my teenage years, casting a pale over my Sunday nights. No respect for the sanctity of the one night in the week America's families gathered to bask in the warm glow of their TV sets, ritually bonding with Lassie, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza. Then, then! To push us over the top in 1978 with the introduction of “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney”, foisting a sanctimonious sourpuss into our living rooms?

Of course, I'm exaggerating...for effect. Another cheap stunt. Andy served his last glass of whine about a month ago, delivering his 1,037th and final televised commentary. Don't you just hate when even after you've signed a DNR consent form some idiot intern pulls out the crash cart and administers CPR?

Tick tick tick tick tick...

I could speak to the the ethos espoused by this blog's title and I may well do so at later date, all the more so given the thematic underpinning of this journal and the potential for addiction each of cited items have. Though, I'm unaware there ever being a 12-Step program for Grateful Dead fans. Of course, the obsession of Deadheads is legendary. That was an altogether different time and place. Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll. You had to have been there to grok the gist of that motto. 40 years later, we've all grown up. Perhaps the battle cry of the 1960's should be be re-coined  Impotence, Viagra, Guitar Hero!

I was born in 1950, mid-century, making me a Baby Boomer, my father, born in 1922, a member of what Tom Brokaw characterized The Greatest Generation (Jews, please note, you cannot redeem your Chosen People and Greatest Generation coupons at the same time).

At this point I should be making a seamless segue into today's topic. That's probably not going to happen. Essentially I'm throwing a baseball around the horn today – a wonderful staying-limber technique for infielders after a successful out. [While it's not quite time for the seventh inning stretch, if you need to grab a cold brewskie, go ahead - this blog is available for viewing on closed circuit monitors throughout the ballpark – you won't miss a word!].

We spent the night before last in Abita Springs, Louisiana, at the home of solutionary Ben Harper, whose mom prepared a lovely dinner for us. Ben is the troupe member responsible for the design and construction of a 15 ft. in diameter bamboo, truncated-icosahedron with wings. It figures prominently in our shows and serves as the focal point for Veronica Ramirez's Living Peace Mandalas: one-of-a-kind, sacred circles created along with festival goers out of organic materials foraged from nature. Earlier, after arriving on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain near the 25 mile bridge that takes you to New Orleans, we had the opportunity to kayak on the bayou, which I have to say looks exactly as you would imagine – dead calm waters, Spanish moss hanging from Cypress trees, alligators prepared to launch at any moment. Really.

Yesterday we made tracks across the rest of Louisiana, cutting through warm and humid weather, covering 500 miles before coming to rest at Pine Street Station, on edge of downtown Austin and the site of this weekend's event. Fellow Roadshow members, Chad Rittenberry and Nick Moser, were there to greet us in the cool night air, having gotten a head start while we were all still in Asheville, North Carolina. This is their town and to a large extent they are responsible for making this event possible. The funky, football-field long, corrugated-roofed warehouse has worn, wood plank floors and is broken up into a series of galleries. An adjoining outdoor area includes an eclectic mix of booths and awning-covered service shacks put to good use on Sundays, when Hope Farmer's Market operates. The acronym stands for a Helping Other People Everywhere, about as honorable a mission as one could...hope for.

The Thrive Austin Festival 11.11.11, is billed as a one-day happening “celebrating local community and global sustainability”, an enlightened nexus that will require the synergy of people everywhere helping others. Yep, Texas may be the Lone Star State, but when push came to shove, like it did for the defenders of the Alamo, a constellation of many lit up the San Antonio sky.

Asheville Cats

“That he not busy being born is busy dying”.

- It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), Bob Dylan, 1964

“Billions and billions...”

- Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and communicator in astronomy and natural sciences (born 1934 /died 1996)

Last week, as some of us were getting our faces painted for a Halloween portrayal as Carnie Zombies, the odometer of global population quietly ticked up a notch from 6,999,999,999 to an even 7 billion. My, my, where did the time go? Seems like only yesterday we were a quaint little planet with a mere 2.5 billion. Back when Industrialized Nations could pillage Third World countries with impunity. They no longer can get away with that kind of shit. Or can they? International corporations like behemoth bulldozers raze everything in their path for world dominance in an insatiable lunge for profits at the expense of people. As the Right2Know March stood poised and ready the morning of Day 16, the final ascent to Lafayette Square, DC Metro buses wrapped with Monsanto propaganda turned the corner one right after the other. The 1% has more money than God, which by definition puts the Almighty in the 99%, somehow a comfort to David in his ongoing bout with Goliath.

It's been a awhile since I last posted an entry to this journal, so you'll have to remind me where we left off. Wait, wait, don't tell me...we were drawing a line in the shifting political landscape. “Which side are you on, Obama? Which side are you on?" That, a chant from the White House Tar Sands Action earlier this tour. We altered the lyric slightly after learning a foe of the president was still asking for him to fork over his birth certificate. Which country are you from, Obama, which country are you from? Really now, must we continue to flog a dead horse? You have to wonder, however, wouldn't it be relatively easy for a forger to, well, forge a birth certificate. After all, if teenagers can put a few hundred bucks down for a passable driver's license, couldn't the fuckin' Commander-in-Chief get his hands on an ersatz document to assuage his detractors. Probably have to 86 the technician, though...you know, to cover the trail of fraud.

Occupy Asheville has two meanings for this writer, the first describes a location among many of the current tsunamic, anti-corporate political and social movement; the other, Sustainable Living Roadshow's sojourn in this amazingly cool North Carolina city. What can I say...I love Asheville. Given my limited geographical vocabulary (I didn't get around much in my first six decades), I'd describe it as one part Santa Cruz, CA, one part Greenwich Village, NY, and one part San Francisco's North Beach – woven together then unrolled street by street in this craft-brewing center of the Southeast. And just as a man (and woman) does not live by beer alone, it has an emerging reputation for farm to table culinary excellence. After partaking in a generous serving of the best, fried shoestring potatoes I have ever eaten (I kid you not!), it may well deserve the moniker Foodtopia.

Home to one branch of the University of North Carolina system, the relatively-small (3,500 students) and somewhat affordable campus is known for its liberal arts orientation. There is a comfortable intimacy, a progressive feel and judging by its food service and physical plant, a tradition of sustainability. Bringing our tented sideshow here is a little like preaching to the choir, but on the other hand it was inspiring to engage so many friendly, kindred spirits.

At the cafeteria's entrance a sign declaring Your Table Awaits You...Relax greets hungry students. Produce is locally sourced, rSBT is absent from milk products and there is much in the way of vegetarian alternatives. Most impressive of all, however, is a DIY juicer, a massive machine that pulverizes and extracts the essence of carrots, beets, kale and apples. The windows of the expansive dining area opens onto an unobstructed view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, its famous Parkway unseen in the distance. Helpful tabletop signage has suggestions for an optimum, balanced diet including a handy, healthy shopping list for your dorm. A poster bids you to Reduce Your Consumption, Take Only What You Need, which applies, of course, to more than just food. The only danger zone is a substantial dessert bar (ice cream, cookies, pudding and pies) offering a challenge to the strong of faith, yet weak of flesh.

There is a robust recycling program in effect with clearly-marked and conveniently-placed receptacles as well as biomass composting. Two of the food service workers with whom I spoke told me there is nearly zero waste at their facility. UNCA also prides itself as having an energy footprint nearly half that of any of the other 15 campuses. So, it came as no surprise that the 7^th Annual Southern Students Renewable Energy Conference (SSREC) was held here over the weekend. Perusing the two-day workshop schedule gave me a booster shot of hope against the perception that young people are dis-interested in politics and preoccupied with popular, mainstream culture. After observing a malaise of apathy and lack of native curioisty at the Maryland Institute College of Art, it was refreshing to witness a strong counter-balance. Perhaps it's possible to have your gluten-free cake and eat it too!

A smaller troupe boarded Priscilla and Julia yesterday morning, several members having jumped off the road at this juncture. We are well over the three month mark of the tour and life beyond beckons. The SLR ship of solutionaries has turned its stern, so to speak, our vessel now westward bound, Austin city limits our next Roadshow destination. Today, we awakened to a still and peaceful Alabama morning. In an hour or so we'll cross over into Louisiana for some laid back time on the Bayou.

I was sorry to have to leave Asheville alright, but it's not going anywhere any time soon. In the wake of that revelation an epiphany, the sudden comprehension that San Francisco is not the only place one can leave his heart.

Nothing is as Powerful

 

Only those who risk going too far truly find how far they can go – T.S. Eliot

We must be doing something right - earlier this week nature graced the Roanoke Valley with four glorious days of balmy weather, with temperatures in the low seventies, above normal for this late in October, a meteorological phenomenon known as an Indian summer condition. An Indian summer can also refer, metaphorically, to a late blooming of something, often unexpectedly, or after it has lost relevance. In this latter use we should perhaps be referring to our American Autumn as the American Indian Summer, in the sense that the Occupy [everywhere] movement seems to have picked up where we left off 40 years ago. In a renewal of purpose, there is an urgent, articulated call to action with the gravity of destiny. As is oft quoted, there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come. And come, it has. It's as if, after the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, the counterculture went into hibernation and its ringleader, Rip Van Winkle, just got rudely awakened. Tea Party members, beware - you may want to keep your distance until after he's had his morning constitutional.

Last night, under a waxing crescent moon, there was a reversal of fortune. Temperatures dropped 30 degrees. It was a frigid hand attempting to flick a Bic to light the burner to boil the water to heat the oats to feed the mouths to warm the bellies of Julia's crew. By invitation, we were parked adjacent to what was once a golf driving range, now home to Cross Fit, a military-regimen informed, indoor/outdoor facility, and nothing like what most of us have learned to expect in a gymnasium. Our hosts were its proprietors, Tim Falke and Andy Beetle. We met Andy, an itinerant philosophy professor and internet marketing entrepreneur, at the Roanoke Outdoor Circus, where Cross Fit also had a presence. One could not help but notice the minimalist equipment: a huge, over-sized tire and two thick ropes hooked to the back of a pickup truck. He liked what the Sustainable Living Roadshow was all about. Coming at sustainability from different tributaries, we are both flowing in the same direction toward the Sea of Change. Andy walked away from a multi-million dollar enterprise to help fund Cross Fit. Tim is an recently-retired member of the United States Armed Services, a former Special Forces Navy SEAL, with nine deployments to the Iraqi and Afghani war zones under his belt. His story is an object lesson of what happens when military meets intelligence, in this case not an oxymoron. When Tim returns to the same town seven years after first befriending an eight year Iraqi boy only to be fired upon by the now, rifle-toting fifteen year old, it dawns on him that nothing whatsoever is any different, not one iota. However, he has... and it gets him wondering - just what the hell are we doing there? The straw that breaks the camel's back comes when he is unwittingly privy to a high-level conference call that reveals to him the true nature of American involvement in the region. His heart no longer in it, he pulls the plug and retires.

This morning, a massive bulldozer is off-loaded a semi-trailer and begins to grade an area the size of...well, the size of a rugby field. Tim, you see, was (and apparently still is) an avid player, something totally in character for a man who is now on a far different mission from that which Uncle Sam had in mind when he signed up 13 years ago. Cross Fit has plans to start raising chickens, cultivating an organic garden, ultimately teaching men, women and children how to live a sustainable existence and learn self-reliance, if not self-resilience.

We are now barreling down Interstate 77, about 60 miles east of Asheville, North Carolina, where we will spend the next week and three days. After a brief consensus process, we have decided that out time will best be served by digging in for an extended stay with Occupy Asheville. Across this roiling nation of ours, sands are shifting in all directions and the time is coming to draw lines. In some towns and cities, the law is cracking down on the tented encampments, in others the local authorities are supporting the 99%. Which side are you on?

A person who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

Another Day Older

You load sixteen tons, what do you get,

Another day older and deeper in debt.

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go,

I owe my soul to the company store.

Sixteen Tons, Merle Travis (1947 recording)

Over the river-crossing trestle adjacent River's Edge Sports Complex, the site of last weekend's Outdoor Circus, Roanoke's first ever, three-day celebration of alfresco pursuits, i.e., hiking, camping, cycling, paddle boarding, kayaking, fly fishing and rock climbing - hopper cars mounded high with West Virginia coal make their way north by rail, payloads destined for a slow boat to China.

Here we are presented with a textbook case of pretzel logic, a conundrum of global proportion: this dirty-burning, carbon-emitting, fossil-fuel commodity that endangers domestic lives in subterranean mines, rapes and lays bare mountaintops - fouling ground water and endangering the health of rural communities - is increasingly earmarked for foreign markets (Exports skyrocketed between 2009 and 2010, from 387,000 to 4 million tons). And adding insult to injury, Shanghai's polluted industrial exhalations are about as respectful of boundaries as the once-common secondhand smoke in airline cabins (Non-smoking sections on passenger jets? Talk about your ludicrous concepts). And I hate to get all up-in-your-face NIMBY on ya, Shanghai, but we're just across the aisle from you on Spaceship Earth, and your belching factories' carbon emissions are heating up my backyard.

Familiar with The Tragedy of the Commons? No? Well, maybe this is as good a time as any. In an 1968 article in Science, Garrett Hardin put forth a theory describing “the dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen” (from Wikipedia). For our purposes above, the shared limited resources are clean air and a habitable atmosphere for planetary creatures, human or otherwise.

In his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond provides several examples of Tragedy of the Commons, including the following:

Many centuries ago, immigrants came to a fertile land blessed with apparently inexhaustible resources. While the land lacked a few raw materials useful for industry, those materials were readily obtained by overseas trade with poorer lands that happened to have deposits of them. For a time, all the lands prospered, and their populations multiplied.

But the population of that rich land eventually multiplied beyond the numbers that even its abundant resources could support. As its forests were felled and its soils eroded, its agricultural productivity was no longer sufficient to generate export surpluses, build ships, or even to nourish its own population. With that decline of trade, shortages of the imported raw materials developed. Civil war spread, as established political institutions were overthrown by a kaleidoscopically changing succession of local military leaders. The starving populace of the rich land survived by turning to cannibalism. Their former overseas trade partners met an even worse fate: deprived of the imports on which they had depended, they in turn ravaged their own environment until no one was left alive.

Pretty dismal, huh? I suppose I could have projected a G-rated preview of coming attractions, but what would be the point. We are like the proverbial frog in a pot, unaware of the gradually rising water temperature ... until it's too late. Unless current trends are brought into high relief, most people will fail to notice the emerging patterns; unless drastic measures are undertaken, we will reach peak everything without a leg to stand on. The clock is ticking, reminding us time is a limited resource, too. It is up to each of us decide how we want to spend it.

For my part, I've jumped off the road, as we say, for a three-day visit with two dear friends in Floyd, Virginia, while the rest of my fellow SLRians pitch in at Acorn, an egalitarian intentional community in Mineral, about four hours NNE. On Thursday I will rendezvous with Julia back in Roanoke, as a group of us travel to Occupy sites in the Southern region to learn about and perhaps teach what we've heretofore learned about sustainable practices and political action. Meanwhile a crew aboard Priscilla will make its way to the 6th annual Mountain Justice Fall Summit in the Coal River Valley of Southern West Virginia, hosted by Coal River Mountain Watch and RAMPS (Radical Action for Mountain Peoples' Survival), a direct action campaign to end strip mining.

Saving the planet, it turns out, is a full time job.

A Single Step

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

The Right2Know March foot soldiers who set out Saturday, October 1, from the Flatbush Food Coop in Brooklyn, New York, arrived at the White House Sunday, October 16, at 12:51 PM, though not before intersecting with the Occupy DC protesters at K and 15^th Streets, in an acknowledgment of political solidarity and philosophical harmony. The seemingly disparate issues currently addressed by political activists, environmentalists and sustainability advocates are anything but isolated. They are connected like the rhizomes which lay beneath golf course turf, trampled by the power elite as they conspire to keep 99 percent of the population financially-subservient. The proliferation of civil disobedience and direct actions throughout the United States – coined the American Autumn – is but the tip of the iceberg. The ship of global corporatocracy has taken a hit to its hull – and like on the RMS Titanic, rearranging the deck chairs isn't going to change the outcome. It's no longer a question of if, but when.

My concerns a few days back that wearing out shoe leather in this mobilization might go unnoticed proved to be unwarranted. National Public Radio weighed in yesterday on its food blog, the salt, mentioning our arrival and rally at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, reporting that the movement calling for mandatory labeling of genetically-engineered food is “heating up”. The plight and future of global agriculture is a keystone issue, the first domino, which if toppled has the power to run the table and reset the status quo of planetary sustenance, rescuing it from the sway of chemistry and gene-tampering toward the ways of biology, as nature intended.

This morning we awoke in a parking lot in Fairfax, Virginia, at George Mason University, an innovative, entrepreneurial institution with global distinction in a range of fields including climate change. It should also be mentioned there is a strong ROTC presence on campus. Rolling in last night to a first-things-first supper of Potato-Leek Soup, bubbling in its bungee'd cauldron en route from Takoma, a neighborhood in northern Washington DC, where we had landed the eve of our descent into DC. Usurped from the throne during the reign of Everybody's Kitchen, I am again responsible for the care and feeding of our newly-reconstituted roster of solutionaries, which has been and will be in flux for the remainder of the tour.

The first one up, I boiled water, quietly French-pressed coffee, checked my e-mail on an about-to-power-down laptop outside Priscilla on a curb, a ubiquitous furnishing on the road. After getting a download from Tom on how the day ahead would unfold (totally different than we had anticipated), I ambled over to the adjacent Mason Inn, Conference Center and Hotel. Against a group of smartly-attired guest congregating in the lobby wing, I felt conspicuous with my sleepy-headed hairdo, black GMO protest T-shirt, khaki shorts and red-yellow-and-blue, Off the Wall Vans, sans socks. Nevertheless I sought out and found a comfortable easy chair and ottoman, plopped down and plugged in my MacBook (God bless you, Steven Jobs! May you rest in PCeace).

After a decade as a hotel banquet employee, I have an uncomfortable familiarity with the brittle formality of the hospitality industry, the uniformed attendants standing erect, at the beck and call of the breakfasting, conference attendees. The dissonance only served (ha!) to italicize, underline and make bold my resolve of never returning to the corporate food and beverage industry. I shared this train of thought with our host at Calvert Farm not two weeks ago. As you'll recall, Pam Steegall did a 180 herself, leaving the nine-to-five corporate game and buying a farm. As it had for her, I have reached the point of no return. I know, I know, never say never, right?  My friend... I am sixty-fucking-one years old. My nights and days of suiting up, showing up, kissing butt, selling a part of my soul to the devil are done. Finito. Henceforth I will be lowering my carbon footprint, downsizing my living space(s), and working for social change and environmental justice. Once the CF light bulb is lit...there's no going back.

At the wrap party Sunday night, among the now familiar faces - a group of kindred spirits whom I have had the pleasure of marching alongside of, dining with, learning from - was Joseph Wilhelm, the president of Rapunzel, the German natural foods company. After buying him a beer, we got chummy and had a heart to heart. Turns out, even though I don't understand German, we speak the same language. Out of the blue, a gift I couldn't have imagined - he has invited me to come to Germany to be a guest chef for two weeks at the company commissary - an option I entirely intend to pursue and providing further evidence I am following the right path.

Early in my second year of sobriety, with my marital status in transition, life these days is about winding down and away from the way things were, while opening up to the way things can be.

To be or not to be, isn't that the question?

Heavy Metal

 

And the rocket's red glare,

The bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night,

That our flag was still there..

The Star-Spangled Banner, Frances Scott Key

The lyrics of our national anthem, sung before the first pitch of every MLB game, come from Defence of Fort McHenry, a poem written in 1814 by the then 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet, after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy in Chesapeake Bay during in the War of 1812. One day, I hope soon, we won't need illumination from weaponry for living proof of our freedom or bravery.

It's raining again this morning at Mount Royal Station, where we have been stationed for a gig Thursday at MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art. The SLR crew had planned to depart last evening and rendez-vous with the marchers, but the ranger and park police of our anticipated destination had other ideas. So we stayed put, which was fine with me. Everybody's Kitchen shuttled dinner back to us, consisting of a really yummy kale and potato soup, cole slaw and wonderful Boston Brown bread.

This area of Baltimore, Bolton Hill, has some serious street cred. In 1826, the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of Mechanical Arts was established to ready young men for the unfolding Industrial Revolution. A year later, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was chartered as the first passenger train. With the most-inland harbor and an east to west rail, Baltimore was now poised and positioned to capitalize on the burgeoning Westward Expansion. As aficionados of Monopoly know, the B&O stop on the board is one of four railroads, the others being the Pennsylvania, the Reading and the Short Line. Speaking of which, passing Go and collecting $200 would come in handy just about now.

The B&O no longer stops at Mount Royal Station, however the Romanesque and Renaissance-styled, Maryland-granite and Indiana limestone-trimmed station, completed in 1896, is now home to MICA studios. The train barrels through every 20 to 30 minutes, night and day, and it must be the little boy in me that thrills at the sight, sound and undeniable power of a locomotive pulling the building blocks of industry into the future. Meanwhile inside the renovated station's studios future artists of America wield power of their own with welding torches. The juxtaposition of these two images is worthy of a Carl Sandburg poem, a Diego Rivera mural, and a Nine Inch Nails song. Combined.

As I am putting the finishing touches on this entry, Joseph Wilhelm comes into the Jessup, Maryland, Starbucks where I have commandeered the ADA accessible table (not to worry, I'll move, if needed). Wilhelm and the marchers have stopped at MOM's (Mom's Organic Market), a shining example of what a health food store in the age of sustainability consciousness ought to look like. Scott Nash, founder and owner, started the venture in his garage with $100. They only sell organic produce (none imported from China), eliminated plastic bags (long before anybody was even talking about it), and stopped carrying bottled water (even though doing so cut into their profit margin).

I offer to buy Wilhelm a cup of coffee. He won't hear of it. He excitedly relates some promising news - a German reporter interviewed him earlier today at length about the issue we are attempting to bring to the fore. The piece is slated to be broadcast in Germany and around the world. Whether it will reach an American audience is questionable. With only two days to go before Sunday's 12:30 PM rally at the White House, our limelight dimmed by Occupation America, we could use some prime time coverage.

Where are those pyrotechnics when you need 'em?

Drive a CSA in the USA

 

When that rooster crows at the break of dawn, 
Look out your window and I’ll be gone.
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, Bob Dylan

One day, about 18 years ago, Pam Steegall, tired of driving a desk, decided she’d had enough of corporate America. So, she and her husband, Paul Roberts, did what many dream about, but few attempt - they purchased a farm in the northernmost, eastern corner of Maryland in the town of Rising Sun, half a mile south of Pennsylvania and 11 miles due west of Delaware.

The R2K Grand Caravan pulled up to their 17+ acre homestead last Monday afternoon after two days holed up in a very sketch West Philly neighborhood. It was an incredibly generous display of hospitality to invite sixty wandering souls to spend the night, but then like Blanche Debois in A Streetcar Named Desire, we've always relied on the kindness of strangers.

Calvert Farm is one of a growing number of CSA's, short for Community-Supported Agriculture, an alternative food network, essentially a cooperative partnership between farmers and groups of consumers who fully fund the growing operation in return for a share of the harvest. Families and individuals receive one (sometimes two) boxes of assorted produce each week during the growing season. In the case of Pam and Paul's operation, the subscription runs for 20 weeks, with a 7 week fall extension and ends up costing $25 per box. The concept was brought to North America in 1984 by Jan VanderTuin, having solidly taken root in Germany, Switzerland and Japan in the 1960's, in response to concerns about food safety and the urbanization of agricultural land.

In the morning, after breakfast and seeing off the marchers, the entire SLR crew took off to find a reliable wifi hot spot and to take care of some vehicle maintenance. Everyone, that is, but me. I had my own agenda, not the least of which was some needed rest and relaxation - my sleep deficit approaching that of the national debt. During the duration of the R2K March, wake-up time has been 6:45 AM every each and every day and I have volunteered numerous times to be the morning alarm clock for the entire contingent. As one might suspect, this is not the best way to make friends. Beginning back at the Churchville Nature Center, though, I brought into play a concertina, playing a bagpipe-like modal melody. That's round one. In round two, I pick up the pace and bang a drum. After that, I duck.

Before taking a noon-time siesta, however, I got to observe the everyday workings of the farm. In order to create sufficient supply for the demand of their CSA collective, Pam and Paul draw cooperation and assistance from the Amish community, contracting with growers on satellite farms to plant specific crops and hiring workers to help with harvest-related activities. This morning several Amish folk - four teenage girls and two elder woman in tradition dress and bonnet - bagged, counted, weighed and filled boxes with sweet potatoes, winter squash, lettuce, peppers, cilantro and onions. After fulfillment is completed, the boxes are loaded into trucks and vans for delivery to pickup locations. 

Oh, and did I mention? Calvert Farm has been certified organic from day one. So, if anyone has any doubts as to whether sustainable farming methods can be utilized to feed the multitudes, you may safely put them to rest.

Zzzzzzzzz...

Day of Atonement

 

The holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur, falls on the 10th day of the month of Tishrei, following Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which occurs ten days earlier. This year the Day of Atonement fell on Friday, October 7, beginning at sundown. This Wednesday, at daybreak, I will wake up with 365 days of continuous sobriety behind me. Are these two events related? Most definitely. Yom Kippur is at its very core about reflecting on the transgressions of the past year as well as making amends with anyone who wronged you or whom you had wronged. It is about letting go of old grudges and asking for forgiveness, respectively. The 4^th Step in AA calls for a fearless and thorough inventory of your life, leading in the 8^th and 9^th Steps to making amends, or retribution, with persons whom you have wronged – except when to do so would harm those or others. In the 10^th Step, we are told to continue taking inventory and promptly admitting when we are wrong. In other words, clean house and keep it clean. In this way, one stays spiritual fit.

On the surface there seems to be complete concordance. The only hair splitting issue is that in Judaism when one is a victim, say, of embezzlement, you are expected to forgive that person (the embezzler) even though it seems like it ought to be the other way around. In AA it is proposed that nothing occurs in a vacuum - we always need look at our complicity in all social equations. We are neither innocent bystanders, nor inert entities.

It's certainly easier to blame others for our troubles than to take a long, hard look at ourselves. Such was the case with this writer.

On the 22^nd of September of last year, I was laid off from a good paying job. Whereas, on the surface, it would seem to had been bad news, it was really a blessing in disguise. Having begun as a dream job, over the passage of time my work environment became increasingly intolerable, even some days, a living hell. Relieved as I was, though, upon essentially being granted what I had wished for, it would have been easy enough for me to also also have harbored a vehement hatred toward my ex-boss, who in my opinion was a two-faced, insincere, snake-in-the-grass, conniving son of a bitch (a little bitter, are we?)

My employee folder will forever provide incontrovertible evidence of a downward-spiraling employee. A far different story, though, would've unfolded had the reality of my alcoholism been revealed to my superiors before things got to be so unmanageable. It would have explained things. Instead, the worst things got, the more I drank. The more I drank, the worst things got. A quagmire of my own making. I drank to deaden the the pain. I deadened the pain to forestall the inevitable, ultimate truth.

My great grand-sponsor, Jerry, upon hearing me share my workplace experience in a meeting. recommended I make amends to my ex-boss. That I should apologize for not having been the employee he was paying me to be. At first, this seemed so preposterous and counter-intuitive I dismissed it out of hand. Now, two days shy of receiving my one year medallion, I'm not so sure.

God works in mysterious ways, don't he?

The Great Mandala

What we hope you will learn from your visit:

Be thankful for what you have.

Show respect for all living things.

Learn to not waste anything.

Share what you have and help each other.

Lenape Village at the Churchville Nature Center, Lower Bucks County, PA

This hopeful takeaway for visitors to this authentic replication of a Native American village seems to me to comprise a fairly complete ethos for these modern times. The depiction of the Lenape tribe's lifestyle as practiced some 600 years ago epitomizes the true spirit of sustainability and is a useful reminder there is nothing new under the Sun. As if to underscore this, in the sky above, geese in classic V-formation flying down from the north are landing at nearby Springfield Lake, either to winter here or continue on to points south. Just as foot soldiers from the Right2Know March are headed to Philadelphia, the next way station on an itinerary taking them, us, me, to the White House.

The caravan has changed considerably from what it looked like in the beginning of August. Where once there was only Priscilla, Julia, and Roxy Boxy, now there is also the Compass Green mobile greenhouse, Dr. Bronner's hook-and-ladder fire truck - plus a flotilla of support vehicles keeping pace with the marchers, including the eye-catching little blue car with a huge genetically-engineered corn fish on its rooftop.

For the duration of the R2K March everyone is being fed three meals a day by Everybody's Kitchen (EK), a group of volunteers that tour around the country feeding people wherever and whenever a need arises, be it victims of natural disasters, the inner-city homeless or in the service of political actions. EK travels in a big yellow school bus converted into a commercial kitchen. Let me tell you, I thought it was way cool that Priscilla was outfitted with a serviceable kitchen. But, this? A school bus with all-the-stops- pulled-out, professional equipment? It's the bomb! UK is joined at the hip with Organic Valley, its logo-emblazoned, refrigerated box truck packed with fresh milk, butter, eggs, juice and produce. I've grown especially fond of topping off my morning joe with their hazelnut half 'n' half.

They, the EK crew, are every bit a part of this thing as we are a part of their mission. Having had some time off from KP duty, I get to don my chef's coat in a few hours to begin prepping for tonight's dinner. I will be preparing a Curried Coconut Vegetable Stew, Thai Red Rice with Quinoa, and a piquant Peach Chutney. And it just so happens it'll all be vegan. So, there!

My eyes well up with tears when I consider how truly fortunate I am. Apart, though not separate, from the SLR tour, this is a personal journey – in the bosom of an intentional community in motion - having taken my place on the Great Mandala. I've never felt more a part of the Web of Life. Though I know not where the road will take me after SLR arrives back in Oakland, CA...for the time being I am living in the moment.

And I can report back to you, the Here and Now is not just alive and well.  It is teaming with life. My life.

Walking the Walk

 

I just flew in from Chicago...and are my arms sore [cue rim shot!] So goes the old Borsch-Belt, Catskills-comedian, stand-up line. Yesterday, I walked from the Watchung Reservation to Highland Park...no small feat [pause while reader catches pun]. Okay, enough silliness - let's get down to the business at hand and the centerpiece of Sustainable Living Roadshow's Right2Know Tour, namely, the R2K March – a Mobilization for GMO Labeling. It kicked off last Saturday, October 1, at the Flatbush Food Coop in Brooklyn and after an official launch event at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park, the three dozen marchers crossed the Hudson into Jersey City en route to Washington, DC, where the march will conclude at the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a distance of 313 miles, or roughly 20 miles a day.

While SLR employs a healthy dose of humor in its edu-tainment, GMOs are no laughing matter. If you knew what I now know, you'd be appalled.

Get ready to be appalled.

80% of all processed food contain one or more genetically engineered organisms. Whether in corn, soy, sugar beets, cotton and alfalfa; or all too common ingredients – ascorbic acid, corn syrup, xanthan gum or maltodextrins – they're hard to avoid. Unless consumers are given the choice.The point exactly.

There are two major traits associated with GE (genetically-engineered) crops. The first involves altering the DNA of plants so they will survive an otherwise deadly dose of Roundup, a potent weed killer. Plants are then said to be Roundup ready. The second attribute, accomplished by splicing in a gene from bacillus thuringiensis, a soil bacteria, is a plant's ability to secrete the insect-killing Bt toxin from every cell.

During the course of the last few days, I've had the pleasure to speak with Joseph Wilhelm, one of many foreign nationals here in America to put their best foot forward in unity. He is the German-born, Co-Founder and President of Rapunzel, producer and distributor of organic, non-GMO, food products.

Starting in 2007, and again two years later, Wilhelm was instrumental in organizing and leading marches to draw attention to and gather petitions calling for a government mandate for mandatory labeling of GMOs. The first march took place in Germany, lasting 43 days, covering 850 miles. Over 150,000 signatures were collected on a petition which was delivered to the Agricultural Ministry. In the second, an appeal was made to the European Union (EU), the route of the march from Berlin to Brussels. The proof of their efficacy is in the pumpernickel pudding...in Deutschland, region after region have banned GMOs.And just over three weeks ago, the EU banned from general sale honey contaminated with GMOs. The EU, Japan, Thailand, New Zealand are part of an ever-growing body of countries now enforcing the labeling of genetically-engineered (GE) food. The United States stands apart from this worldwide trend.

Why should this concern you. Simple. You are what you eat. America is already the most overfed, under-nourished nation in the world. Fast food is killing us. Obesity, hypertension, heart disease, food-borne allergies. What more evidence do you need?

Enter genetic-engineered foods, already implicated in the 50% increase in soy-based allergies. To date, nearly all studies looking at the health consequences of GE food have involved animals. The results? It does not look good. These experiments have found high infant mortality, low birth weights, organ damage, and abnormal cell growth. Perhaps the scariest finding thus far, though, this from the only published study of humans and reported by theInstitute for Responsible Technology is evidence genes from GE foods can transfer into stomach bacteria and continue to function.

As I am putting the final touches on this entry, the R2K marchers have just showed up at the Whole Earth Center, a non-profit, multi-faceted nexus for slow food. And even though I sat this one out, having worn out some shoe leather yesterday I know firsthand what is means to not just talk the talk, but really walk the walk.

The illustration on one of the posters being carried on the march shows a guinea pig pushing a shopping cart filled with corn chips. And while there are opinions on either side of this issue, there is one things upon which we can all agree.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

http://www.right2knowmarch.org/
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/
http://www.sustainablelivingroadshow.org/

We the People...

Illuminated behind my closed eyelids, a flash of blinding light. In a semi-conscious state I count...one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand...disquieting the silence, a deeply-percussive, subwoofer rumble, the distance from the lightning’s epicenter marked by time, a second per mile. Lightning and its shadow, thunder, are the meteorological equivalent of a passionate tango – hot air aloft, cold air beneath, the dance ending in a fiery finish.

Then the other shoe, rain...drops. Two songs come to mind, one by The Temptations, the other, Cat Stevens...in a mash-up I sing, “cause raindrops will hide my teardrops and no one will ever know...I've been crying lately thinking about the world as it is..”

I awakened to a pristine, cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness morning at a Rockwood, PA, lakeside campground, having arrived after nightfall. I had quickly prepared a minestrone-themed soup which we enjoyed under a really cool pavilion. We were joined by our new friends from Eco Womb, a family with whom we had dined at Seven Springs this last weekend. They have joined the caravan for this leg of the journey. Dessert was comprised of a musical jam. With Jonathon laying down the rhythm and me on guitar, Sirraum found his voice and improvised lyrics to a wicked riff.

The pre-dawn storm having washed clean the chalk, a clean slate awaits. There's a new moon and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts at sundown tomorrow, a good time to release the old and usher in the new.

An hour ago, the very wise Veronica Ramirez, whose living mandalas, co-created with festival-goers, always seems to become the spiritual hub of the spaces we come to occupy, mediated a different kind of circle, a shrine at which each of us cast little scraps of brown paper into a bowl, stating that which we wish to change and that to which we aspire. Elements reminiscent of Yom Kippur, which follows Rosh Hashanah, entered into the solemn, secular ceremony. In a collective act of purification, one by one, the little hand-written notes were set aflame.

The fields of apathy have lie fallow long enough. It's time to sow the seeds of change. All this week SLR will be tooling up for the centerpiece of our tour, the Right2Know March. Drawing attention to the potential dangers of GMOs, we will be joining several hundred protesters on a two-week trek from Brooklyn, NYC, to Washington, DC, demanding that Congress enact laws requiring manufacturers to label products which contain genetically-modified organisms.

And for the second time in as many months, this American citizen will be exercising his freedom of assembly. When I set foot in Layfayette Park, it will not be for me – it will be for we.

We the people...

Ode to Fall

They say that all good things must end someday
Autumn leaves must fall
But don't you know that it hurts me so
To say goodbye to you
Wish you didn't have to go
No, no, no, no

A Summer Song, Chad and Jeremy

Yesterday was the autumnal equinox – otherwise known as the first day of fall - one of two times each year when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. From now until the Winter Solstice, the days will continue to shorten as the nights lengthen. That's the science.

Here at Seven Springs Mountain Resort, for the Mother Earth News Fair, the leaves of deciduous trees are beginning to change colors. And while there's a scientific explanation for this, too, the palette of this flamboyant display will eventually produce art that rivals the paintings of Monet. Hickory, Maple, Sycamore, Ash. Black Cherry, White Popular, Cottonwood, Sassafras. It's all part of nature's way, allowing these trees to survive the harsh winter. I could tell you while chlorophyll produces the greens of spring and summer, carotenoids and anthocyanins account for the yellows, orange and browns, reds and purples, respectively. But that would be like me telling you a conflagration of neuro-transmitters and hormones are what accounts for the feelings we associate with falling in love.

I have this eidectic memory. It is fall of 1965. I'm out for a solitary stroll in my neighborhood. There is woodsmoke in the crisp, October air. All at once, a sweet melancholia washes over me, a sad longing, an elusive sense of identification and meaning - my first awareness of knowing my true emotional nature and being in harmony with nature. And while it wouldn't be released until December 3, The Beatles Rubber Soul became for me evocative of that fall. Though I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan of all their music, that sixth studio album of theirs will always have a special place in my heart ("but of all these friends and lovers...").

Tonight I painted with food. I can't help myself, I'm an artist. Some will tell you cooking is not a legitimate art form. Don't you believe them.

Picture this. Woven wood bowls. Pumpkin and butternut squash soup seasoned with yellow curry. A melange of florets of broccoli, yellow and green beans, julienne strips of red bell peppers, yellow summer squash.

It was my Ode to Fall.

My Continuing Education

 

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear – The Outer Limits' opening narration

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain – The Wizard of Oz

The other day, while at the Rodale Institute for Research and Education, I dropped by their little retail store about closing time to fill up (product placement ahead!) my stainless steel, Kleen Kanteen beverage container. A little ironic, don't you think, their ground water is non-potable due to excessive amounts of calcium, the result of natural limestone deposits. The young woman behind the counter offered me chilled, sparkling water. Chit chat segue to talk of shrub - a fruit, sugar and vinegar concoction dating back to colonial times - which one mixes by adding still water or two cents plain. The back of the little bottles of Raspberry Shrub on the shelf contained a brief description of its contents and instructions for its use. Though originally in reference to the proper proportion of government in our lives, the clever writer of the back label brought into service a quote of Thomas Jefferson's: “a little goes a long way”.

I almost hesitate to speak the word for fear of being labeled an alarmist or conspiracy theorist, but here goes anyways: the matrix is real. Maybe not exactly as portrayed in the movie of the same name, but our lives are manipulated by forces unseen, so pervasive we no longer realize we're under their spell.

Does anybody really believe George W. won fair and square in Florida? That Pearl Harbor was truly a surprise attack? That on the morning of 9/11, forty minutes after an airliner has inexplicably crashed into the North Tower, United Flight 175 somehow slipped past flight controllers and NORAD's dragnet? Or that the Twin Towers collapsed solely as a result of the two plane's impact?

Alright, okay, I can tell I'm losing you. I can see that faraway look in your eyes. You're thinking...man, the next thing you'll say is that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't a lone gunman. Or that Jack Ruby was aided and abetted. Can't you leave anything just be? You troublemakers are always...always...making trouble!

Fair enough. For the moment, let's put aside these inconclusive and controversial Big Ticket items and move onto something a bit more tangible, a tad more manageable. Things we can know for sure, things we can do something about. We're not just puppets, you know, dangling under and at the mercy of some faceless evildoers. We live in a democracy, right?

Okay, let's take a sober look at two myths of recycling - these findings (reproduced here verbatim) from a Berkeley, California, pilot program, as reported by the Ecology Center's Berkeley Plastics Task Force. They prove the old refrain: if you can't reduce landfill there, you can't reduce landfill anywhere. It's up to you...

Misconception # 1: Plastics that go into a curbside recycling bin get recycled.

Not necessarily. Collecting plastic containers at curbside fosters the belief that, like aluminum and glass, the recovered material is converted into new containers. In fact, none of the recovered plastic containers from Berkeley are being made into containers again but into new secondary products such as textiles, parking lot bumpers, or plastic lumber – all un-recyclable products. This does not reduce the use of virgin materials in plastic packaging. "Recycled" in this case merely means "collected," not reprocessed or converted into useful products.

Misconception # 2: Curbside collection will reduce the amount of plastic landfill.

Not necessarily. If establishing collection makes plastic packages seem more environmentally friendly, people may feel comfortable buying more. Curbside plastic collection programs, intended to reduce municipal plastic waste, might backfire if total use rises faster than collection. Since only a fraction of certain types of plastic could realistically be captured by a curbside program, the net impact of initiating curbside collection could be an increase in the amount of plastic landfill. The Berkeley pilot program showed no reduction of plastic being sent to the landfill in the areas where the curbside collection was in operation. Furthermore, since most plastic reprocessing leads to secondary products that are not themselves recycled, this material is only temporarily diverted from landfills.

Should these revelations alarm you? The simple answer is yes, they should. The more complex, scientifically-informed answer? Fuck, yeah!

There is a prescient scene in The Graduate, the 1967 Mike Nichols film written by Buck Henry. In the scene, where a party has been thrown in honor of the recent college graduate, the lost and rudderless Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, is pulled aside by an older, wiser friend of his parents, with some business acumen. “Ben.” “Mr. McGuire." “Ben.” “Mr. McGuire." “Come with me for a moment, I want to talk to you...” (Ben is led outside to the pool)... “I just want to say one word to you...just one word.” Yes, Sir.” “Are you listening?” “Yes, Sir.” “Plastics.”

Yes, Sir. Plastics.

Turns out that was some damn good business advice. That is, if you want to reduce manufacturing costs of just about anything and everything. Make products that wear out sooner and easily break. Replace durable materials like aluminum, rubber and steel. In other words, perfect for a Disposable Society. Why pay a lot of money for something that will last a lifetime when you can pay so much less. Never mind that you'll be buying another one before the year is out. Certainly by next year. Especially when those newer versions, models, what have you, will be smaller, larger, cooler, hotter, faster, lighter.

So, what's the big deal. Well, actually the big deal is a little deal. Think molecular. Are you listening, Mr. Mcguire? Plasticizers. Also known as phthalates or phthalate plasticizers, these chemicals made from fossil fuels which give plastic its plasticity, can be toxic and carcinogenic, whether in production or off-gassing as VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds). Plastic is everywhere. You don't even have to look up to know it's all around you. Your computer? Full of plastic. Pen in hand? Plastic. Paper coffee cup lid? Plastic. And for all intents and purposes, plastic does not decompose and if and when it does, it persists in the environment, like, forever? (Yes, even Valley Girls know this.) How many millions of tons of plasticizers are dispersed in the ocean and waterways, like so much background radiation, is incalculable. If nothing else, your takeaway from today's entry is this – plasticizers are known endocrine disruptors – they mimic hormones like testosterone and estrogen, wreaking havoc in the body of humans, not to mention fish, fowl, amphibians, reptiles and insects.

At your earliest convenience...say...immediately following this blog and before returning to your regularly-scheduled program, google plasticizer. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist, you know, to be alarmed. And just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being followed. File closed.

Now, what's up with those barium chem-trails?