Category: Uncategorised

American person: why gosh it’s too bad about thousands of Iraqis dying from sanctions, but we have to do something about that madman! He gasses his own people! True, he killed less of them than we did, but um, he must be stopped. Therefore, one can only conclude that it’s “worth” every dead non-leader. too bad for them.

Chocolate Pudding

  • 1/3 Cup Sugar
  • 1/4 Cup Corn starch
  • 5 tsp Cocoa organic fairtrade, of course
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp cinamon
  • 1/4 Cup coffee or soymilk
  • 2.5 Cups soy milk
  • 2 Tbs Butter or Margarine sadly, butter, tho unvegan, is healthier to eat
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine dry ingredients in pan. Slowly stir in coffee (or soymilk) until smooth. Stir in the (rest of the) soymilk. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil one minute and then remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Pour into wine glasses (or other attractive serving bowl), cover and refrigerate. Serves 4.

Idea – Certified Biodegradable

I’m not just procrastinating or anything…
So almost everything that exists today will one day be garbage. Some of these things are recyclable. Most are not. Pizza boxes, for example are made out of wood pulp (perhaps recycled). Ordinarily, you would expect this to be recyclabale, but it is not, since the food oils are not compatible with recycling. But the pizza box is still biodegradable.
We like to be happy about biodegradable products. They can go into a landfill and not sit there for the next 10K years in their current form. Instead they go to a landfill, biodegrade and get contaminated with stuff that’s dangerous for 10K years and are not reclaimable as fertilizer, dirt or topsoil. This is better (slightly), but it’s not good. Pizza boxes contain nutrients that are useful and could be reclaimed as good compost. Throwing that away is wasteful.
Instead, we could set up a large municipal composter. This could be a large drum that rotates and is titled at a five degree angle. The insides of it contain sharp protrusions, to break things apart. Warm water (think recleaimed water here) is misted onto this thing. Trash goes in. One week later, dirt comes out. There’s a plan for how these things should work in one of my organic farming books.
The problem is, of course, not all trash is biodegradable. Composting all trash before landfilling it might reduce the volume of stuff going into the landfill, but it’s a waste of what could have been good compost. Instead, users could sort out biodegradable trash much the same way they now sort out recyclables. However, it’s hard to tell what is biodegradable. My shampoo bottle says “biodegradable” and “recyclable” on it. It’s clear they intend to say the the plastic is recycable. But does the biodegradable marking refer to the shampoo within the bottle or the bottle itself? Also, if the bottle is recyclable, this is an unusual situation, because normally plastic is not. Clearly consumer education will not be enough for users to sort biodegradable items from non biodegradable items.
Many people are proposing that manufacturers pay for disposing their products. Thus the disposal costs would be factored into the cost of the product and the packaging instead of being a hidden cost at the end and a burden to all tax payers rather than the individuals who purchased the product and all the packaging. This is a good idea, but biodegradable material would still be lost to the sanitary landfill for generations. The solution then is for certain products and especially certain pieces of packaging to be certified as biodegradable. Companies who met certification would have a reduced disposal fee for those items. In exchange, the product or packaging in question would be free of non biodegradable ingredients. If your plastic bottle biodegrades, but your ink is toxic, the compost resulting from it would be unsuitable and hence your whole product would fail certification.
There is no reason for a shampoo bottle to live decades longer than the shampoo it contained. This proposal is a step on the path to sustainability. Under the current capitalistic system, it may work better than an outirght ban on stupid packaging. It gives corporations incentives to fix their problems and to develop new methods for creating intelligent biodegradable packaging. It also gives consumers incentive to pick biodegradable products, since the discounted disposal fee will lead to cheaper prices.
Corporations may try to duck out of this by claiming that plastic is recyclable. Therefore, the disposal fee for non-biodegradable objects should consider what percentage of plastic actually gets recycled and what percentage of actually recycled plastic is re-used as packaging. In other words, if only 20% of plastic bottles are saved from the landfill through recycling, corporations would still have to pay 80% of the disposal fee. This fee would further be increased because plastic bottles do not become bottles again, so virgin material is required for every bottle produced. Manufacturers using glass bottles would pay a much lower fee, since most glass is recycled and it can be turned into glass bottles over and over again indefinitely. Manufacturers using recylable, biodegradable plastic would pay the same fee percentage as normal plastic producers, but they would pay that percentage of the lower biodegradable fee, rather than the sanitary landfill fee.
The compost resulting from tis scheme (once tested to make sure toxins didn’t sneak in) could be used in parks, schools and farms. The use of this compost would add nutrients to the soil and reduce the need for chemical fertalizers, thus leading to healthier plants, healthier food and ultimately healthier people. And less stuff in the landfills. What more could you want?

Political Apologies

My fellow Americans, when I wrote a song about Mitch, I never meant to offend anyone by writing, “I like Mitch, even though he’s straight.” Those who know me can attest that this was only meant to be humorous. I don’t look upon anyone due to their sexual orientation. Heterosexual people can’t help the way they are and we should look upon them with tolerance.
Um, just kidding. Great and straight just ryhme so well. I’ll look for a replacement. Please stop sending me hate email. I sincerely hope that Mitch’s feeling were not hurt. I hope that he would contact me directly if they were. I’m very very sorry. It won’t happen again. From now on, I promise to banish perjorative terms, such as “breeders” from my vocabulary. It’s time that we as a nation moved beyond such petty distinctions to a happy utopia where queers and hets can live in harmony.
even though nobody on earth has ever been straight bashed by anyone shouting “breeder,” it’s still a very naughty word, like calling white folks “redneck crackers,” which is something that’s also very very naughty. Naughty Naughty Naughty. Mia Culpa. dern humorless hets…

Consumer Choice

Several months ago, the cafe down the block from my abode changed ownership. The previous owner yelled at my dog (because her dog attacked mine, and so mine must be at fault, right?), so after going there once, I never returned. It was strickly a weekday cafe catering to workers in the area and not residents. Anyway, the new owner opened up the place on weekends and made a definite effort to be part of the neighborhood community, business and residential. He was almost too nice to my dog, giving her many many scraps of meat until she would come home and barf.
The cafe showed some of my neighbor’s art. The percussion group that Christi and I organized playes at the art openeing. The food was good and the staff was friendly. One of the transient people staying at my house got a job there. Christi got friendly with one of the staff who gave us a Rhodes piano that he wanted to see get restored (note to self: spend this afternoon fixing the dern piano). All was well and happy.
And then the food started to suck. They gave me raw pancakes. I vowed never to return. A week later I was back. Something else was not right. We quit eating food there, but just got coffee. Then Luoi started bringing home coffee from Gaylords (on Piedmont Ave in Oakland). Angels sung overhead when I drank that coffee. I really vowed never to return to the place down the street and I didn’t. Once I had Gaylord’s coffee, I was through with their (same priced as Gaylords) swill.
And then yesterday, while walking the dog back from the post office (apparently you can’t just put an address label on a dog and send her to Siberia), I ran into the Rhodes guy. I asked him how it was going. Not well. The cafe is losing money. He’s had his hours cut. They’re all in financial trouble. oh no! So, I’m about to head over to buy a soy chocolate milk which I may drink and I may accidentally spill in a planter on the way home.
Catholic guilt is a pain.

Anti-war protest

Wish I could give a more in depth review. We showed up. Watched people march for a while. Listen to a speech by somebody who plays a hippy on the TV show Dharma and Greg, waited in a hella long line for the bathroom, picked up flyers from almost every socialist group there (the Spartacus folks are pushy) and then decided to go get food. I suck at protesting. Anyway, I got on some email lists and talked to some of the biodiesel people. I wish they’d had a stronger presence. I think biodiesel is definitely a solution to many environmental, social, and politcal problems.
Anyway, we walked from the Civic Center to a restaurant at 22nd & Mission that Christi likes. It’s a tapas place called Esperento. None of the esperanto people were there. (yet another under publicized idea that can solve many problems. Did you know that more than 10% of the UN budjet is spent on translators?) The food was really good, but the background music was that song where the refrain says, “If you love me, say yes. If you don’t then confess. Just please don’t tell me Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.” Over and over and over again. The song played in a sort of a flamenco style the entire time we were there. I used to like that song.
I feel like yuppy scum, I show up at a protest as an excuse to try fine dining. Anyway, there wasn’t any chanting. I’m good at chanting. There were just a whole lot of people milling around. I felt kind of like a spectator, since I didn’t have a sign or anything marking me as a protester. So I picked up flyers instead. I also have a copy now of every socialist newspaper that was there. I also nabbed a copy of the The Little Red Song Book. So it wasn’t just fine dining, it was also shopping.
Anyway, I think the bad that I’m in should play a cover of the socialist anthem. The songs in the songbook are designed to be sung on picket lines, so many of them are set to familiar tunes. They’re wayyy too catchy. My factory lies over the ocean. My factory lies over the sea. My factory lies over the border. Bring back my factory to me. Bring back, bring back, bring back my factory to me to me. Bring back, bring back, bring back my factory to me. (it’s been stuck in my head since saturday.) Other songs are folk tunes. The ones by Judi Bari are very interesting, but I can’t talk too much about this because Christi hates Judi Bari. This stems from a summer job where Christi opened mail sent to the team working on the Spotted Owl Environmental Impact Statement. Christi’s dad was on the team. Apperently, Bari sent death-threats to Christi’s dad and Christi read them as a young teenager. When radicals threaten your family, it has a way of turning you against them, I guess. Renee hates Angela Davis, because Renee’s uncle was a prison gaurd and was killed by an inmate whom Davis successfully defended. Or participated in the defense or something. Anyway . . .
The next protest is in February, and I might be in Portland or Seattle when it happens. Wherever I protest, I’m going to show up earlier and bring a sign. Maybe it can say “Peace” in Esperanto or something about biodiesel. I should join or found a radical biodiesel group that can hand out flyers about liquid solar power and the existing diesel fleet. I think that there’s some good possibilities on this. Maybe we could grow algae in waste water (read: sewage) and harvest the oil out of it in a centerfuge kind of thing. Algae is about 50% oil. That oil could be used for fuel. Perhaps it could be heat-treated to kill germs. Tammy just got a job designing waste water treatment plants. I should talk to her about this.
Matthew reported that most of the Portland protesters were Baby Boomers. There were almost no folks his age. That’s confuding to me because Matthew is draft age. Why aren’t the folks with the most to lose out there? The San Francisco crowd had a ton of young people. It really was a huge crowd. Bigger than other thigns, I think. Ususally, when I go to gay pride, I see tons of people I know and we chat for a few minutes. At this event, pretty much all of my friends, queer and het were there and I didn’t bump into anyone that I didn’t arrive with.
The newspaper reported that a small group of black-clad protestors broke off from the march and broke some windows in the financial district. It was very targetted, apparently. They broke windows of banks that are war profiteers and Starbucks. Anyway, it occurred to me that if we were protesting an acual war in February, there were enough people there to shut down the entire city. Groups could fan out and stop all car traffic. We could block the Bay Bridge. Blocking BART would be harder, but it’s part of the solution to oil wars, not the problem, so that’s ok. If everyone decided that there was going to be a city-wide shut down, it would be impossible for the cops to clear it. They’d have to arrest thousands of people. More than they have jail space for. There’s not enough cops. How could you arrest 50,000 people who have fanne dout across the city with the goal of sitting down in every interesection? You couldn’t. They’d have to use other (bad) crowd control tactics, but honestly, I don’t think they want to. (I saw somebody carrying a sign that said, “cops for peace.”) First of all, a lot of them are probably anti-war. Secondly, anti-war protests are great for city tourism. People came from all over the west to protest in SF. Every restaurant for miles around the city center was packed with protesters. I hate to be so shallowly capitalistic and crass, but the hotel and restaurant business are probably overwhelmingly pro-protest, at least, unless they’re Starbucks or the cops starting shooting out all the windows. And the protest was on a Saturday, so most non-tourist businesses are not affected. So if we did shut down the city, as long as we kept going into restaurants, staying in hotels and buying tourist trinkets (some from the protests, stay for Fisherman’s Warf), and it was on a weekend, would the city really care? It would certainly be a great symbolic gesture to halt automobile traffic, if only for a few hours.
I bet it’s illegal to talk about the pros and cons of blocking traffic. Maybe the FBI reads my blog!! Total Informatin Awareness is out to get us. I miss civil liberties. I hope that in the next presidential election, the votes actually get counted.

The Problems of Urban Composting

Permit me, dear reader, (if I have any), to think aloud for a moment about composting in the city. There are some problems specific to urban composters that suburban dwellers and country folk don’t have. One of these is a space limitation. Also, urban people are less likely to have gardenning tools such as pictforks or shovels. Your city resident may only have a containrer garden (if that) and no actual plot of dirt to call her own. Also, urban dwellers are more likely to have a ready supply of “wet” matter (also known as “green”) than “dry” matter (also known as “brown”). In short, the urban composter may be an apartment dweller with a small deck, no dirt lot or shovel who only has food wastes to compost.
What the is the ultimate compost bin for such a person? First of all, any compost bin on earth must be free of toxic stuff that will leach into the dirt that’s being made. This seems to rule out bins made of pressure treated lumber and some plastics, like PVC. Any bin that contains food wastes, even just carrot tops, must be rodent-proof. An ideal apartment bin would additionally be space efficient and not require a shovel of any kind. The ideal solution seems to then be worm composting. You can feed your worms all sorts of food wastes including cooked foods, afaik, and I’ve heard of some self-straining models, where removing the compost from the worms involves no more than pulling two pieces apart. Instant dirt. Takes up as little space as you want ti to. the worms are even edible. There are a few (as in one or two) cookbooks for how to eat your worms, should you get to be very hungry or decide you have an excess population. What criteria you would use for that, I don’t know.
However, worms die. Lazy people continually have to go get new worms because they dry out or go hungry for a while. I guess you could eat half of your worms before going on vacation, but that seems like an intense dedication to composting would be required. Also, all of the worm bins I’ve seen have been made of PVC. So then, what would be an ideal solution for a lazy apartment dwelling composter who doesn’t want to eat worms before travelling?
Since both space and brown matter are at a permium, the apartment bin should contain some form of brown material storge. Perhaps a hopper could be positioned over the main part of the bin so that brown matter, such as peat could be stored in there and then released into the bin via a lever or something. Also, an ideal bin would have a turning over mechanism built in. I have a PVC bin that’s round and on rollers, so that it can be turned over just by rolling it around. It’s efficient for space usage and requires no tools, although the plastic is a problem. Using a shovel to turn compost seems to have the side effect of breaking up big pieces of things. Periodically, a grapefruit will sit too long uneaten and be sent whole to the composter. Right now, this has a tendency to attract fruit flies, since the grapefruit does not get broken into little pieces. This design also is a bit hopper unfriendly, since the bin openeing and the hopper would need to be lined up before peat could be added.
Compost bins also need to sit a while before dirt can be removed. It’s necessary to have two or three bins, so one can be aging while material is being added to another. So the ideal bin would spin, would have some sort of brown matter storage, would break up big pieces of things, would, perhaps, store aging compost in addition to “active” compost (which is being added to daily) and would take up very little space. Additionally, it would be created out of non-harmful materials that ideally are somehow recycled, recyclable or both.
Ok, so this had me thinking. What if the brown matter was somehow built into the bin. I began picturing a bin made somewhat out of metal, but also out of the kind of compressed peat used for some pots. Then a hopper is no longer needed. So what you have is a big metal box, in which there is a round holder of aging compost. There is an identical round holder above this to hold active compost. It’s basically a wire frame with strong pegs sticking out the ends, at the center point, so it can rotate. The frame is light, since it’s designed to hold a heavy peat composting container. This container keeps out rodents and provides brown matter. The frame has some long spikes that stick inwards. These are designed to piece the peat. They have a dual function of holding the peat in place and breaking up large objects like whole grade fruit. The frame can split open to completely empty it and to load in a new peat frame. It also has a door on it, which must line up to a door punched in the peat, so that the uer can add new vegetables. Both the top bin and the bottom bin should be spun periodically. The bottom bin is in a box (with no top), to catch the dirt that falls out as the peat completely degrades along with the compost. The whole thing, including the bottom box, the two round frames and the mount above the box (which holds up the top round frame) is made of recycled steel. Except, of course, for the peat pieces.
Maybe it’s too big. It’s probably too expensive. buying new material every go-round may put-off some users. I’d write more about this endlessly facinating topic, but I must go do something about the dern fruitflies getting into the house again.