Friday Already?
Yet another week has flown by and it seems as if I am always busy now. I wonder where the summer went so fast. Karley and Becky have both bugged me about my recently infrequent updating, so here's a post. At least I know I have some interested readers out there.
1. Regarding this whole alleged plot to blow up airliners that will no doubt in the end turn out to have been an Al Qaeda conspiracy which necessitates our invading yet another country, let's try to keep one important fact in mind. The source of our information on this alleged terrorist conspiracy is primarily the United States and British governments. Let's review some history here. These are the same governments who told us that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapon. These are the same governments who told us that Saddam Hussein had huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons just waiting to be delivered to terrorist states. The United States government, just over two years ago, told us of "new intelligence" that indicated an "imminent" plot to attack financial centers in New York, New Jersey, and Washington DC--and that "new intelligence" turned out to be old and outdated intelligence (and "coincidentally" came to light just after John Kerry had had the media spotlight for a week during the 2004 Democratic convention). The British government gave us the Downing Street memo and neglected mentioning to their people before committing British troops to the great Iraq rumsfailure that the Bush Regime had cherry-picked intelligence and otherwise misled everyone. And on and on it goes.
Given all this history, please explain to me exactly why we should automatically take the word of the American and British governments that anything they are telling us about this "plot" is true. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical, but in spite of how much I hear that I'm paranoid, my usual mistake is not being too paranoid, but rather, being too trusting of anything the government says. See, I've learned my lesson by now. I think I'm just going to wait a while to see what else comes out about this "plot" before I get all excited about it. I also can't help but wonder what scandal or other bad news for the Bush or Blair governments is currently developing that has been pushed off all the front pages because of this so-called "terrorist conspiracy".
2. I don't have the time right now for a lengthy commentary on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, so for now, I'll summarize my position in Cliff's Notes version: You kids knock it off right now or you're both going to be grounded for the next year!
3. With IFC's regular kitchen coordinator, Paul, on vacation in sunny Mexico for over two weeks during July and August and his assistant having taken another (better-paying) job, I've been filling in at the Community Kitchen due to the fact that staffing is so scarce. Its usually only in the mornings and through lunch, but the pace can get tiring. I have restaurant experience, but that was over ten years ago and I'm not used to it at all. But I suppose it does me some good to do more than push paper for a while. Nevertheless, we would need two or three people to fully replace all the of the work that Paul's assistant used to do, so we still have a sizable staffing gap. Paul, if you're reading this, its good to have you back, in spite of everyone's extensive efforts to pretend otherwise. And also, you owe me. Big time.
In spite of my half-hearted griping, though, I've actually enjoyed the work quite a bit, not the least of which is because its given me quite an education. Paul's annual kitchen budget is just over $5,000, which is less than what an average family of four spends on food. On that, we serve an average of about 8,000 meals a month. Needless to say, that budget only counts the things IFC actually buys and not the value of donations, countless volunteer hours, and so forth. And we get a lot of donations. Contrary to what a lot of people tend to think, the food we get donated is actually very high quality in most cases. In other cases, its only average quality or so--day old bread and the like. Sometimes volunteer groups also bring in their own food to serve. In virtually all cases, the food that is served is nutritious and high-quality.
There's a lot of excess food around town that would otherwise go to waste, from places like the university, the hospital, restaurants, and grocery stores. IFC tends to be very aggressive in tracking that excess food down and making sure we get it. Its really quite an impressive operation. Despite the fact that I sometimes have my issues with how IFC does things, the Community Kitchen is definitely one thing they do right--in fact, they do an outstanding job on it and they've been very determined to not allow budget cuts and rising fuel prices to affect the people who need food. My local readers shouldn't get the wrong idea though--we are constantly in need of help to keep it all running smoothly, so please don't hesitate to write that check, donate that extra food, or call about volunteering.
Partly due to my work with IFC, I've developed a strong interest lately in food politics. Its amazing when you think about it that so much of the food that is donated to social service agencies or thrown away is actually perfectly good and would be considered fine or even first-rate in almost any other country. In most parts of the world, the food we consider waste would be tremendously appreciated. And I know that if there is this much excess in Chapel Hill, it must be there in any other city or town as well. Groups need to be aggressive about finding this excess and getting it to those who could use it as opposed to just letting good food go to waste simply because spoiled Americans refuse to eat anything with the slightest of imperfections.
And there's another issue that's becoming more and more important as well, even though most people don't yet realize it. With the search for alternative fuels, ethanol has become a virtual gold rush, with large numbers of enormous refineries being set up to turn things like corn into fuel for our SUVs. Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, was on NPR's Science Friday discussing the alarming prospect of fuel production being in direct competition with basic food needs.
Because of the fact that no one is really paying attention or keeping inventories of capacity--yet another manifestation of the folly of purely market-driven economics--we are on our way to getting more ethanol refineries than can actually be run with the supply of corn and other crops we have available. The Earth Policy Institute estimates that if the nation's entire corn harvest were diverted to ethanol production, it would satisfy around 16% of our energy demands. Think about that for a moment. This is assuming that America's entire harvest of corn is used to fuel our automobile addiction. It still won't be enough and then one has to wonder how we'd make up for the lost food production. Even more alarming is the question of what would happen to other people around the world who are so dependent on American-grown crops to feed themselves. Here's one interesting statistic: The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain it takes to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people. (Source: Earth Policy Institute)
There are other options that are more cost-effective and simply make more sense. For instance, Mr. Brown talked about the enormous potential of wind power in his interview. We also have the option of making ethanol from other sources that don't compete directly with the food supply. But of course, implementing alternative energy on a wide scale would require a vast and preferably rapid redesign of the American energy sector. Could it in fact be done? Well, I believe that if we wanted to do it, we could. As Mr. Brown also pointed out, remember that in 1942, we completely restructured the entire American economy in a matter of months in order to fight a world war. Americans can do a lot if the political will is there and I don't believe we should have to keep settling for lowered expectations.
Getting away from lowered expectations. Optimism that things can be better and the will to demand that they improve. These things are vital to constructing a new progressive political message that will appeal to Americans on a wide scale--as opposed to simply whining about how we hate George Bush (who doesn't?) and how much is wrong with the world. I believe that whether we get rid of our current system and build a new progressive society that can deal with the challenges of the 21st century is no longer a matter of preference--it is vital to our surviving and flourishing as a civilization. Energy and food are just two reasons why and of course, there are numerous others.
4. Speaking of waste, jajy1979 did an excellent recent post on how much Americans waste water. Unfortunately it is locked and I'm hoping he'll consider making it public. James, if you're reading this, it seems that the post about the ten most dangerous animals is showing as locked again as well.
5. With all of the talk about Peak Oil and the ensuing decline in supply and skyrocketing prices, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a country that has already experienced Peak Oil. An added bonus is that its a country that's recently been in the news a lot. I'm talking about Cuba and their ways of coping with a limited energy situation brought about by the U.S. economic embargo and the loss of massive amounts of aid from the Soviet Union. It is interesting to look at how Cubans have managed to radically change their society to use less energy: rooftop gardens, altering the food distribution system, using less petroleum-based fertilizers, cutting pesticide use, and improved agricultural methods, for starters.
When you consider that Cuba is a poor country starved of a lot of resources, you start to get a sense of what amazing things could be achieved by wealthy countries like the United States if we only decided to do it. Again, its getting away from the lowered expectations the government and the media have conditioned the American people to live with. Of course, its not to the American media's advantage to cover anything going on in Cuba and give the American people any ideas about how their situation might be improved from what it is now. And the people themselves seem to focused mostly on preserving the few little crumbs they already have.
And while I'm on the topic of Cuba, I might also mention that the way the American media covers Cuba infuriates me. It always seems to be centered around the anti-Castro dissidents in Miami and has little to do with the Cuban people or the reality of life in Cuba. For instance, I've seen a lot of stories covering the Cuban community in Miami and how they are reacting to the situation with Fidel Castro. The U.S. media did the same thing, of course, during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. I really don't give a damn about what people in Miami think about Cuba; I'd much rather know about what people in Havana think. Why are there never any stories about that?
Sure, Castro does a lot of bad things. But no one seems to want to talk about how Castro's revolution, at the time, was not such a horrible thing for most Cubans. Nor do we want to talk about how so much of the opposition to Castro is from people and corporations who aren't all that happy with the fact that they are no longer able to exploit the Cuban people and obscenely enrich themselves in the process.
6. Spotted on a t-shirt downtown earlier today: "I child proofed my house but they still got in." Even funnier because the man wearing said shirt was being trailed by three small children.
7. And finally, a Friday Five (last week's, because I liked it better).
1. How much time do you spend on the Internet daily?
Probably entirely too much. In my defense, I do a lot of research, I help create and run websites, and I have a lot of non-local friends I like to stay in touch with. So its not as if I'm mindlessly surfing for hours at a time.
2. What are your favorite 3 websites?
Only three?!?! That's hard, especially with the number of blogs I read, on Livejournal and elsewhere. so I'll just pick three I spend a lot of time on: Livejournal, Daily Kos, and Moveon.org. Google probably goes without saying. And to toss out a nifty little tool most of you have probably not heard of, check out MURL.
3. Do you eat at your computer?
Yep, its been known to happen...
4. Pick one and why - Reading the news online or in a newspaper?
Online. This is simply because information is so much more connected as opposed to being limited by a newspaper to what is contained in that day's edition (this is true with books too). You can easily save something interesting or look up more information about something in an article if you want it. Or blog about it of course. In short, its a lot easier online to see how information relates as opposed to having static information with no context.
5. How many people are on your instant messenger buddy list?
Probably well over a hundred if I bothered to count--but most of these are people I don't talk to regularly anymore and never got around to deleting or people I know who have a ridiculous number of multiple screen names (Ahem, Hilly). Then again, I'm accumulating several more with Gmail's new IM service.
1. Regarding this whole alleged plot to blow up airliners that will no doubt in the end turn out to have been an Al Qaeda conspiracy which necessitates our invading yet another country, let's try to keep one important fact in mind. The source of our information on this alleged terrorist conspiracy is primarily the United States and British governments. Let's review some history here. These are the same governments who told us that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapon. These are the same governments who told us that Saddam Hussein had huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons just waiting to be delivered to terrorist states. The United States government, just over two years ago, told us of "new intelligence" that indicated an "imminent" plot to attack financial centers in New York, New Jersey, and Washington DC--and that "new intelligence" turned out to be old and outdated intelligence (and "coincidentally" came to light just after John Kerry had had the media spotlight for a week during the 2004 Democratic convention). The British government gave us the Downing Street memo and neglected mentioning to their people before committing British troops to the great Iraq rumsfailure that the Bush Regime had cherry-picked intelligence and otherwise misled everyone. And on and on it goes.
Given all this history, please explain to me exactly why we should automatically take the word of the American and British governments that anything they are telling us about this "plot" is true. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical, but in spite of how much I hear that I'm paranoid, my usual mistake is not being too paranoid, but rather, being too trusting of anything the government says. See, I've learned my lesson by now. I think I'm just going to wait a while to see what else comes out about this "plot" before I get all excited about it. I also can't help but wonder what scandal or other bad news for the Bush or Blair governments is currently developing that has been pushed off all the front pages because of this so-called "terrorist conspiracy".
2. I don't have the time right now for a lengthy commentary on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, so for now, I'll summarize my position in Cliff's Notes version: You kids knock it off right now or you're both going to be grounded for the next year!
3. With IFC's regular kitchen coordinator, Paul, on vacation in sunny Mexico for over two weeks during July and August and his assistant having taken another (better-paying) job, I've been filling in at the Community Kitchen due to the fact that staffing is so scarce. Its usually only in the mornings and through lunch, but the pace can get tiring. I have restaurant experience, but that was over ten years ago and I'm not used to it at all. But I suppose it does me some good to do more than push paper for a while. Nevertheless, we would need two or three people to fully replace all the of the work that Paul's assistant used to do, so we still have a sizable staffing gap. Paul, if you're reading this, its good to have you back, in spite of everyone's extensive efforts to pretend otherwise. And also, you owe me. Big time.
In spite of my half-hearted griping, though, I've actually enjoyed the work quite a bit, not the least of which is because its given me quite an education. Paul's annual kitchen budget is just over $5,000, which is less than what an average family of four spends on food. On that, we serve an average of about 8,000 meals a month. Needless to say, that budget only counts the things IFC actually buys and not the value of donations, countless volunteer hours, and so forth. And we get a lot of donations. Contrary to what a lot of people tend to think, the food we get donated is actually very high quality in most cases. In other cases, its only average quality or so--day old bread and the like. Sometimes volunteer groups also bring in their own food to serve. In virtually all cases, the food that is served is nutritious and high-quality.
There's a lot of excess food around town that would otherwise go to waste, from places like the university, the hospital, restaurants, and grocery stores. IFC tends to be very aggressive in tracking that excess food down and making sure we get it. Its really quite an impressive operation. Despite the fact that I sometimes have my issues with how IFC does things, the Community Kitchen is definitely one thing they do right--in fact, they do an outstanding job on it and they've been very determined to not allow budget cuts and rising fuel prices to affect the people who need food. My local readers shouldn't get the wrong idea though--we are constantly in need of help to keep it all running smoothly, so please don't hesitate to write that check, donate that extra food, or call about volunteering.
Partly due to my work with IFC, I've developed a strong interest lately in food politics. Its amazing when you think about it that so much of the food that is donated to social service agencies or thrown away is actually perfectly good and would be considered fine or even first-rate in almost any other country. In most parts of the world, the food we consider waste would be tremendously appreciated. And I know that if there is this much excess in Chapel Hill, it must be there in any other city or town as well. Groups need to be aggressive about finding this excess and getting it to those who could use it as opposed to just letting good food go to waste simply because spoiled Americans refuse to eat anything with the slightest of imperfections.
And there's another issue that's becoming more and more important as well, even though most people don't yet realize it. With the search for alternative fuels, ethanol has become a virtual gold rush, with large numbers of enormous refineries being set up to turn things like corn into fuel for our SUVs. Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, was on NPR's Science Friday discussing the alarming prospect of fuel production being in direct competition with basic food needs.
Because of the fact that no one is really paying attention or keeping inventories of capacity--yet another manifestation of the folly of purely market-driven economics--we are on our way to getting more ethanol refineries than can actually be run with the supply of corn and other crops we have available. The Earth Policy Institute estimates that if the nation's entire corn harvest were diverted to ethanol production, it would satisfy around 16% of our energy demands. Think about that for a moment. This is assuming that America's entire harvest of corn is used to fuel our automobile addiction. It still won't be enough and then one has to wonder how we'd make up for the lost food production. Even more alarming is the question of what would happen to other people around the world who are so dependent on American-grown crops to feed themselves. Here's one interesting statistic: The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year. The grain it takes to fill the tank every two weeks over a year will feed 26 people. (Source: Earth Policy Institute)
There are other options that are more cost-effective and simply make more sense. For instance, Mr. Brown talked about the enormous potential of wind power in his interview. We also have the option of making ethanol from other sources that don't compete directly with the food supply. But of course, implementing alternative energy on a wide scale would require a vast and preferably rapid redesign of the American energy sector. Could it in fact be done? Well, I believe that if we wanted to do it, we could. As Mr. Brown also pointed out, remember that in 1942, we completely restructured the entire American economy in a matter of months in order to fight a world war. Americans can do a lot if the political will is there and I don't believe we should have to keep settling for lowered expectations.
Getting away from lowered expectations. Optimism that things can be better and the will to demand that they improve. These things are vital to constructing a new progressive political message that will appeal to Americans on a wide scale--as opposed to simply whining about how we hate George Bush (who doesn't?) and how much is wrong with the world. I believe that whether we get rid of our current system and build a new progressive society that can deal with the challenges of the 21st century is no longer a matter of preference--it is vital to our surviving and flourishing as a civilization. Energy and food are just two reasons why and of course, there are numerous others.
4. Speaking of waste, jajy1979 did an excellent recent post on how much Americans waste water. Unfortunately it is locked and I'm hoping he'll consider making it public. James, if you're reading this, it seems that the post about the ten most dangerous animals is showing as locked again as well.
5. With all of the talk about Peak Oil and the ensuing decline in supply and skyrocketing prices, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a country that has already experienced Peak Oil. An added bonus is that its a country that's recently been in the news a lot. I'm talking about Cuba and their ways of coping with a limited energy situation brought about by the U.S. economic embargo and the loss of massive amounts of aid from the Soviet Union. It is interesting to look at how Cubans have managed to radically change their society to use less energy: rooftop gardens, altering the food distribution system, using less petroleum-based fertilizers, cutting pesticide use, and improved agricultural methods, for starters.
When you consider that Cuba is a poor country starved of a lot of resources, you start to get a sense of what amazing things could be achieved by wealthy countries like the United States if we only decided to do it. Again, its getting away from the lowered expectations the government and the media have conditioned the American people to live with. Of course, its not to the American media's advantage to cover anything going on in Cuba and give the American people any ideas about how their situation might be improved from what it is now. And the people themselves seem to focused mostly on preserving the few little crumbs they already have.
And while I'm on the topic of Cuba, I might also mention that the way the American media covers Cuba infuriates me. It always seems to be centered around the anti-Castro dissidents in Miami and has little to do with the Cuban people or the reality of life in Cuba. For instance, I've seen a lot of stories covering the Cuban community in Miami and how they are reacting to the situation with Fidel Castro. The U.S. media did the same thing, of course, during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. I really don't give a damn about what people in Miami think about Cuba; I'd much rather know about what people in Havana think. Why are there never any stories about that?
Sure, Castro does a lot of bad things. But no one seems to want to talk about how Castro's revolution, at the time, was not such a horrible thing for most Cubans. Nor do we want to talk about how so much of the opposition to Castro is from people and corporations who aren't all that happy with the fact that they are no longer able to exploit the Cuban people and obscenely enrich themselves in the process.
6. Spotted on a t-shirt downtown earlier today: "I child proofed my house but they still got in." Even funnier because the man wearing said shirt was being trailed by three small children.
7. And finally, a Friday Five (last week's, because I liked it better).
1. How much time do you spend on the Internet daily?
Probably entirely too much. In my defense, I do a lot of research, I help create and run websites, and I have a lot of non-local friends I like to stay in touch with. So its not as if I'm mindlessly surfing for hours at a time.
2. What are your favorite 3 websites?
Only three?!?! That's hard, especially with the number of blogs I read, on Livejournal and elsewhere. so I'll just pick three I spend a lot of time on: Livejournal, Daily Kos, and Moveon.org. Google probably goes without saying. And to toss out a nifty little tool most of you have probably not heard of, check out MURL.
3. Do you eat at your computer?
Yep, its been known to happen...
4. Pick one and why - Reading the news online or in a newspaper?
Online. This is simply because information is so much more connected as opposed to being limited by a newspaper to what is contained in that day's edition (this is true with books too). You can easily save something interesting or look up more information about something in an article if you want it. Or blog about it of course. In short, its a lot easier online to see how information relates as opposed to having static information with no context.
5. How many people are on your instant messenger buddy list?
Probably well over a hundred if I bothered to count--but most of these are people I don't talk to regularly anymore and never got around to deleting or people I know who have a ridiculous number of multiple screen names (Ahem, Hilly). Then again, I'm accumulating several more with Gmail's new IM service.