Brad’s Take

Google Earth computer program

Google offers a nifty earth-scene program GoogleEarth. Go to Google.com, on the menu at the top-left or wherever, select the drop-down list under “more”, then “even more”. In alphabetic order is “Earth”. This is a fairly large application, you download it and install it, that will then connect to Google for information about what part of the Earth you are looking at. It is fascinating to see moderately detailed images of your house, your city, the nation, or the world.

Earth comes in three flavors or prices. Google Earth is free – I have used it for several years, it is great. Google Earth Pro is $400, and I don’t know what that looks like. Then there is Google Earth Enterprise Solution – $Call $$Us. I think part of the difference is how fine a detail you get, and whether the images are a few years old (Google Earth free edition) or real time ($Call $$Us version).

Wunderground.com

I like the weather presentation at Wunderground.com (Weather Underground. Huh.) A few months ago they added a display option called “WunderMap”. It sure looks like Google Earth. It sticks current temps and radar activity (rain, snow, etc.) on top of satellite imagery of the ground. Really good satellite imagery.

This morning I wanted to check on the weather where a friend is working. While looking at the WunderMap, I zoomed out to see the whole nation, and noticed nothing much doing around North Dakota at the moment.

There has been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the storm on the East Coast I grabbed the image with the cursor, and dragged Washington, DC to the center of the image, and zoomed in slightly.

The Ocean

I noticed the Continental Shelf – the gradually deepening, rather flat extent of ocean floor near coast lines.

It looked gorgeous.

I zoomed out a bit. I had read a few months ago about the Gulf stream and how it flowed to the North Atlantic – and sank, to flow along the bottom of the ocean back to the Gulf of Mexico.

There is a seam along the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, guiding those warmed waters from Mexico up to warm and modify the weather for Ireland and the United Kingdom. And it is gorgeous, zoomed out to see most of the Atlantic Ocean from in one view.

Across the Pond

At the time of Columbus’ sailing, the general wisdom was for ships to stay nearly within sight of land, maybe several miles, depending on how tall the ship was for a lookout to keep track. Zoom in on the British Isles, and notice the broad and nearly flat (I am still admiring WunderMap at Wunderground.com) continental shelf – which moderates the power of the waves likely to be encountered by a ship. It is amazing to view, in colors representing height and depth (topological view of the ocean floor), the character and historical impact of the shape of the ocean floor.

Fault Lines

Back on the US side of the Atlantic, I noticed a string of “pimples” off the shores of New England – volcanic cones. A fiction book some years ago posited a major earthquake in New England. There are fairly major fault lines there – and I can see the progression leading up from the depths of the ocean and across the continental shelf there.

I looked for Haiti (not that Haiti has been in the news, or earthquakes there). That is one folded and torn piece of ocean bottom. The ridge from Haiti to the south, and crevasse to the north across the ocean floor sure look to me to indicate lots of stress in the earth’s crust, cutting right across Haiti.

And it is interesting to see the wide range of depths around the Caribbean Sea. Amazing – no wonder wrecks got so very lost. Or that the waters were so troubled as to sink so many ships over the centuries.

The oceans, as seen through WunderMap and Google Earth. Amazing.

UPDATE:

I glanced at the Indian ocean (South of India, between Africa and Australia is how I think of it). There was temperature and wind marker – at the top of a single volcano cone, on a fold of the ocean, in the middle of, well, ocean. Ile Amsterdam.

I zoomed in on the mountain – closer than they had imagery for all the surrounding water. Move the image to the center, zoom a little bit, repeat. There is a ring of trees just off the ocean on the east side of the island. With a road leading north. And a Land Rover-looking vehicle on the winding track, heading north. On the North side of the island is a group of buildings – La Roche Godon. Amazing. (67 degrees, wind to the southwest, from a station on the shore, to the west of La Roche Godon.)

The Crunchy Chicken kicks off her latest Challenge to Reduce Food Waste.

I wish all that participate good luck on making your food quantity match your needs, budgeting anything can be a challenge. Luck to all of us to do better, too!

Reading Crunchy’s article, it occurred to me – if you have too much food around, does that mean you aren’t feeding friends and neighbors often enough?

Which brings up Sharon Astyk’s concern about community building as a necessary part of Peak Oil preparation. How can you balance a tightly planned menu with trading meals – having guests, or eating elsewhere – at either planned or spontaneous events or invitations?

In the last few decades many of us have come to think of meal time as the family only, when we should also be considering sharing hospitality and meals. I can remember, years ago, recipes always came with suggestions on how to stretch the unexpectedly for an extra plate or two.

My Dad farmed. When trading work, if you were at the neighbor’s place at noon, or they were at your place for shared work – mid-day meal was provided and expected. And was almost as substantial as a social event related to the work, as a substantial “hungry man’s” meal.

I would like to see adding a guest invitation per week to the reduce waste challenge.

Because I think that what is needed isn’t just parsimony – using the bare minimum. I think we need to use that frugality to amass useful and usable surplus – wealth. Wealth, or surplus, allows us to be generous. You cannot give when you don’t have a needed asset.

When growing up, I recall spending weeks visiting cousins and my grandparents from year to year. This kept the extended family together, expanded our awareness of the world and different ways to live, and exposed us to different kinds of discipline and even different ways to prepare food.

Eating at a neighbor’s house happened at least monthly, if not every other week or so, more often in the summer. You know, when you could send someone to the garden for an extra bowl of peas and tomatoes for the dinner already on the stove.

I see Crunchy’s mid-winter food waste challenge as being a great exercise in planning and values. But I would hate to have someone overlook keeping a well-stocked pantry, and using it well to offer hospitality and build relationships and community. Or even just to brag a bit on canning, gardening, and cooking skills. Because that happened a bit, too. Anyone could feel just a bit content, for a reputation as setting a “good” table.

I am thinking my plans for a garden are even more important than I thought, if I can use it to stretch food resources to cover more shared meals. Now if I can just get the clutter off the pile where I think I left the kitchen table. . .

Tam at View From The Porch mentions (commends) a Dennis Ranch post on “Whining“. That is, a working rancher reflects on – rants about – people (city, or non-ranch, folk) stranded and torn from their regular routine by the recent blizzard.

The rant:

We get a three day doozy of a blizzard. How long has it been since we had one of those in this country at Chriustmas? Been awhile. Setting here this morning reading all the comments and talk on the internet from blogs and Facebook, of people I read and know who have just went thru’ this. And what do I read? Whine, whine, bitch, bitch and moan, moan! “Woe is me!”

Oh how sad that your poor little lives have been upset by Mother Nature. On all the farm/ranch blogs I read, I never saw one person who whined about the extra work to feed the stock. Just the satisfaction of knowing they got the stock all fed and taken care of. Mostly (sorry town and city dwellers) all I read was whine, whine, cry, cry. because we can’t get somewhere we WANT to go. Oh my!

Things didn’t go your way!

How sad!

I grew up in rural NW Iowa, and have been snowed in – mostly every winter, at home. We had heat and running water, food, and barring emergency, accepted the situation and went on. The lane from the house to the road was most of a quarter mile long (house set in the center of a quarter-section of land), and we walked to meet the school bus, whether there was snow drifted or not. If school was on, we headed out; we could see the school bus a couple miles away so we just had time to make it, if we hurried.

So I understand that DennisRanch has little patience for people that haven’t organized their life, from the vehicle they drive to how they heat their home and plan for water when the power and roads are down. That knowing the neighbors and being ready to help – or ask for help – when needed is a matter of planning for regular natural interruptions.

Look at Sharon Astyk’s take on this at Chatelaine’s Keys. Sharon doesn’t mention the blizzard; she is concerned about the nation falling off the common electric grid. That is, the Peak Oil community expects the average (read: more than half, not counting those living in poverty) American family will *not be able* to afford local utilities by 2012. That number came from expectations about instability of oil and coal prices, and much before Obama decided to tax the utility industry into rubble. Kathy at The Just In Case Book Blog looks at all kinds of preparation for emergencies. The Original Modern Urban Homestead is one family’s example of creating a microfarm in Pasadena, focusing on sustainable and alternative energy practices, and food security.

I venture to say that DennisRanch hasn’t “prepared” for transportation cost to overcome market value on his livestock – so he could no longer afford to sell. I venture to say that DennisRanch would be hardpressed to manufacture the appliances and clothes in his home, or the homes of “city slickers”. A recent fairy-tale movie, Juia Stiles’ “The Prince & Me”, makes a point that we are all interconnected. That no one gets hurt without hurting all of us.

And I don’t think DennisRanch adequately takes into account, that storm surprises that catch folks unprepared for what he experiences rather regularly – the isolation and danger of show storms and road travel – is that over time, the rural folk have learned to cope. Others don’t yet have the experience. Where DennisRanch likely, as I did, learned from parents and neighbors what works and what is a hazard over the course of a year, others have family heritage that includes office work and urban interests and hazards. The rural bragging about weathering harsh storms over city slickers is as much a truism and a joke, a the green out of towner or rural rube getting mugged or lost in the big city.

The answer, I think, is to be aware of what the natives know and how they act. Anything different might be due to ignorance – but might be due to hazards and opportunities that we are ignorant about.

Even the village idiot has a story to tell.

I might have been six. It was Christmas Eve, Mom had settled my sister and me in the car, and gone back to “help Dad get ready,” I think was the explanation. It was dark, we were headed to Church for the annual Christmas presentation. It might have been 1957 or 1958.

Years later it was obvious – Mom and Dad scurried, playing Santa Claus in the few minutes they grabbed to drag out the gifts from their hiding places.

The superintendent of the Sunday School at Church handed out to each of us children the usual and expected Christmas bag – a plain brown paper bag, with an orange, an apple, maybe a short pound of peanuts, three or four peppermints in cello wrappers, and a couple of pieces of hard candy. Each and every bit of it, from the paper bag to the last peanut, was a treat, something we didn’t get in the usual course of things. Mom says of that time, “Things were tight. It was a problem if Dad needed shaving cream and I needed deodorant the same week.”

It was a great year for Santa plunder. I got a metal Tonka truck with big wheels that didn’t scratch the floor, and there was a 10 gallon aquarium. With gravel, an air pump and filter, a plastic plant, a light, and four orange and 2 black “popeye” Moor goldfish.

I don’t know, now, how Mom and Dad passed that fish tank off as a gift from Santa Claus. But it was a wonder, and a delight. I think almost all of the fish were there when Star Trek came on the air 10 years later, after one move and with a different tank stand.

What is there to wonder about some fish in a clear bucket? Sure, there is a light, they move, there was a bit of color and gentle sound. What was Christmas-ey about it? I still don’t know. But it was a wonder, something bright, and precious, and fragile.

I still like aquariums. After serving in the Navy, I had a 29″ aquarium and a 10″ black and white TV. When I left the Navy in 1980, and traveled in a packed Toyota to Tennessee, I recall we had a couple of Red Cap Oranda (goldfish, I had been working in a pet store) in a gallon pickle jar, changing water and putting the fish in a large goldfish bowl each night.

Back then for that fishy Christmas, we lived on a farm in Iowa. With Bantam chickens, hogs, and milk cows. Yet that aquarium and those fish brought a different aspect of nature into our home. Dad took us fishing, both then and later. There was never a confusion about whether to eat goldfish or free the bluegills, Bullhead or wall-eyed pike.

Were the goldfish an introduction to chores – feed every day to keep them alive, never overfeed ’cause that poisons the water? Were they a stimulus to young minds, a balm to overactive toddlers and yard apes? Were they pretty, as a bit of nature displayed with respect and reverence?

An aquarium today costs more dollars than my parents probably paid back 50 years ago. 20 years ago the science and technology of home aquariums had subtly advanced over the decades, introducing undergravel biologic filters that use bacteria to filter and cleanse the water, better understanding of water flow and aeration. Vastly more varieties of fish for community tanks. For those interested in a bit more vivid display, along with more demanding care, there are great salt mixes and products to make a saltwater aquarium, and saltwater fishes, available and enjoyable.

Will an aquarium today be a room decoration? Sure. A learning aid? Maybe. A fascination? That depends. A bit of wonder, come Christmas time? For many, I think the answer is yes.

When there are electronic or computer games that wrap around a family, or watching commercial TV has embroiled a home in the advertising-gimmick world of “find something *good*” means “on TV” – then the simple aquarium has a lot of competition for attention.

When you look at an electronic game, don’t think, “That is hours of entertainment”, think, “That is the result of efforts by many, many paid engineers, accountants, and generations of technology, all designed to capture my attention. What don’t they want me to pay attention to, that they devote so much time and effort to distract me?” When you look at your TV, it might be there to display DVD or Video movies. Or to access the internet or watch commercial TV. Again, the real question is “Why do I let the phalanx of advertisers marketing research scientists, communication and production engineers, producers and writers, all conspire to demand my attention to this program or that?”

Why should I settle for stories told with the sole purpose of being interrupted for three or four minutes at a time, ever seven minutes? Interrupted by carefully crafted short messages *intended* to distract me from whatever I was doing, thinking, or the story I was enjoying. Interrupted with a message carefully designed to be more memorable, more likely to direct me into some activity, than the story I had assumed I had chosen, for this regulated time interval.

Did I mention I watch movies, or read, a lot?

The aquarium is random, it is never the same moment to moment. Yet you seldom change channels. You could buy more plastic plants (in smaller tanks, and without special care, real water plants tend to decay more than grow, causing a risk to water quality), or air powered toys. Don’t put a souvenir star fish in an aquarium – the no-longer-living carcass of the starfish begins to decay, putting fish at risk. Don’t ask.

For the most part, aquarium fish are simple, unaffected by their surroundings, not needing change or entertainment. Keep the tank heater set correctly (about 78 degrees F for tropical fish), keep up with water changes and filter changes, feed appropriately twice a day (all food must be eaten within five minutes; anything after three minutes is wasted and likely to rot, causing water poisoning.) De-chlorinate water before adding, as the chlorine in the water poisons the fish and can disable the filter for a while. Don’t overpopulate the tank – figure about one inch of fish, measured from gills to beginning of tail, per gallon of aquarium. Pick compatible fish, you don’t want to watch them kill each other, if you put a rough (but colorful) fish with others that don’t do well defending themselves. When doing partial water changes, the water from the aquarium makes very good water for houseplants – wonderfully rich with micronutrients. There are good books, and kits for bowls, 10 (12) gallon tanks, and larger sets.

The visible part, the tank, is often the least expensive part of an aquarium. Expect to pay at least another fifty ($50) dollars for pump, gravel (about one pound per tank size gallon, half that if not using an undergravel filter), filter (using two filtration systems is recommended for 20 gallon and larger tanks – I like undergravel and one other), de-chlorinator, tank heater, thermometer, light, and fish food. Don’t put fish in, until the tank has been circulating and filtering the water for several days. Oh, and a friend. If possible, you really want a friend that has a tank, or has kept one. There are some severely expensive filter systems, that most home aquariums won’t need. There are also barely adequate or inadequate cheap filters that are difficult to use. Picking a spot for the aquarium away from direct sunlight (grows algae, heats the water), and away from cold drafts (may overpower the heater, set to 78 degrees fahrenheit), and away from traffic areas that might knock the tank over (bad for the fish). A cover on the aquarium slows evaporation, keeps the temp more even, and keeps energetic fish from jumping out, which can be fatal to the fish.

What happens for families living off the grid, or when the grid fails as is predicted? Goldfish and gouramis (a large family of larger tropical fish) tend to do well without “aeration”, without an aquarium pump, as they can “bite” air at the surface of their bowl or tank. Goldfish are cold blooded, and can tolerate lower temperatures with more temperature variation than tropical breeds. Without aeration, moving water so that the exchange of oxygen that happens at the surface can proceed to enrich the water environment, a shallower bowl or tank is better, and will provide for fewer fish.

Perhaps there is room for someone to work out a clockwork driven aquarium aerator, or other means to warm and circulate water in an aquarium. Maybe an exercise bike driven, large but low pressure air bladder capable of powering the modest needs of an aquarium filtration and aeration system.

Until we all go unplugged, and for those families not completely enwrapped in electronically served, merchant designed “entertainment”, an aquarium can be a rich and rewarding addition to the family. Even if I can’t recall how an aquarium in the living room was endowed with so much Christmas wonder.

UPDATE: About.com’s Freshwater Aquarium adviser writes about “Common New Aquarium Mistakes“.

Sharon Astyk writes on Casaubon’s book about “Toys R Not Us”

Abbie commented on the post,

This post really speaks to me. Both my mom and my mother-in-law can go overboard with presents, and I fear that next Christmas will be way overindulgent for our baby. I’ve spoken to each of them about guidelines for what will be appropriate, and spent time reminiscing with my brothers and my husband’s siblings about our favorite toys: blocks, sticks, cardboard boxes, dolls… and of course our favorite things to play with were our pets. So I think (hope) that the moms will understand and give presents that reflect our simple values. I don’t want an overwhelming sea of plastic for each birthday and holiday!

My reply to Abbie, as usual, is bigger than a simple comment should be. So here is my reply to Abbie:

@ Abbie,

The honor of the recipient of a gift is to use that gift in a manner that the giver doesn’t regret the giving. (I read that in a science fiction novel.)

That said, I think the issue of respect must be addressed. You might approach your mother and aunts, and state you are concerned there is a problem coming up for the holidays. Explain that you and your house have chosen to address meaningless values of things, vs. values of spirit and self esteem. Explain that you see much danger in commercial gift giving, that you are focusing on enriching the inner life, and reducing the distractions of clutter and overabundance.

Explain you would prefer gifts of a recorder and song book, to a popular CD or Guitar Hero add-on. Song books and instrument books guide one to the beauty of culture, history, and art. They take time to master, and have no arbitrary “end of game”. The perseverance of learning to play well or sing well is a justly earned discipline, and builds character – instead of merely passing time, admiring an arbitrarily assigned idol.

Don’t get me wrong, there is much to learn from music, whether classical (endurance?!), country, rock, rap, etc. Some lessons should not be learned, but knowing that such a message is false and to be avoided is a valuable lesson, too. Also books, drama, movies, even TV. But electronic versions tend to represent more commercial interest than personal growth. And I am convinced that it is the short, bright intrusions of advertisements into TV programs that largely explains the growth in ADD and ADHD diagnoses – ads disrupt and distract from story telling, which destroys concentration and persistence over the seven (7) minutes between commercials. Some computer games return to the epic story format, and engage for protracted periods of concentration, effort, and persistence. Yet there is little, oftentimes, to learn about people or life from computer games. There are exceptions, yet they require the player to be willing to transfer game knowledge to life skills, something computer users tend to disassociate very early on.

Accept that you can and should not impose your own beliefs on others. But watch closely what they do. Gifting is *always* about respect and responsibility. Pay attention to what your gifting, and the gifts you receive, say about each relationship.

Giving an unwanted gift should be a disappointment to the giver. Within reason the recipient should acknowledge the gift – that is being “polite”. Giving a child a gift in despite of a parent’s request is a clear and aggressive act of disrespect. Disrespect through inappropriate gifts might be a slander to the parent’s parenting skills, their lack of adequate assets to parent, or it might be a simple bullying of the parents (perhaps a continuation of the poor parenting skills the now-parent survived as a child.)

A well-chosen gift is an endeavor of love, not a trip to the “most popular” aisle of a store. Using the above example of a recorder – a first recorder should be a gift. It should be chose with the finger agility and reading ability of the recipient. A certain amount of knowledge is needed to find an instrument suitable for a beginner – not just the “beginner” model the local store happens to carry. It should be easy enough for a beginner to play, and play adequately in the ranges a beginner will manage first. Like ponies, horses, bicycles, books, etc., buying a professional, Olympic competition model is great – when the craftsman that will be using the tool chooses one that fits his or her needs. For a beginner, a hammer is indistinguishable from a concert-grade recorder, a sawhorse from a world champion race horse, jumper, or other performance horse. Buy what the beginner needs. For later acquisitions, enable the craftsman to acquire the tools needed for the next level of growth, next usage. Overbuying kills dreams, because the beginner doesn’t get the tools to begin, and cannot acquire the skills to advance to the advanced tools.

If you have someone bent on a mega-huge purchase – ask for a good, solid, used upright piano, maybe a couple of beginner books. And a visit from a good piano tuner to condition and tune the piece.

Actually, I think the piano is an insidious family endeavor. Because the practice advances from “hit a key” to “hit the right key”, everyone in ear-shot learns about correct timing, correct notes, phrasing, etc. Plus, old tunes get dusted off.

Where electronic games create a world of fantasy, music and music lessons return awareness of earlier cultural values.

I suppose threatening Mom with picking a third-rate nursing home, when the time comes, next week, would be a bit of over-reaction. Depending on Mom, of course.

The New York Times wrote, on Oct 11, 2009, a piece on property values and disputes over hanging laundry out to dry, “Debate Follows Bills to Remove Clotheslines Bans”

. . . Like the majority of the 60 million people who now live in the country’s roughly 300,000 private communities, Ms. Saylor was forbidden to dry her laundry outside because many people viewed it as an eyesore, not unlike storing junk cars in driveways, and a marker of poverty that lowers property values.

In the last year, however, state lawmakers in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont have overridden these local rules with legislation protecting the right to hang laundry outdoors, citing environmental concerns since clothes dryers use at least 6 percent of all household electricity consumption.

The dispute is serious.

“It seems like such a mundane thing, hanging laundry, and yet it draws in all these questions about individual rights, private property, class, aesthetics, the environment,” said Steven Lake, a British filmmaker who is releasing a documentary next May called “Drying for Freedom,” about the clothesline debate in the United States.

The film follows the actual case of feuding neighbors in Verona, Miss., where the police say one man shot and killed another last year because he was tired of telling the man to stop hanging his laundry outside.

Tree ‘em.

But I have a solution. For communities with restrictions, and that don’t want to gaze, rapt, at the holes in the neighbor’s knickers flapping in the breeze – plant trees. Poplars, evergreens. Establish a wind-break zone about the homeowner’s association boundary, plant with wind and view-blocking, carbon dioxide-fixing, trees. Maybe hazel, pecan, or walnut trees for their annual bounty of edible nuts. Maybe apples and pears or oranges and plums. Cherries or peaches. A bit of gardening and landscaping, and in a brief time, watch the cycle of nature cover up those unsightly undies for four to six months of the year or more.

And all without bothering the neighbors. Or would the green-laundry types, intent on saving the air and the climate, object to the extra trees? Naw.

If the roof caves in.

If the homeowners association were to change it’s policy, the mature trees could double as clotheslines. They could use something like the Tuff Enuff Tree Saver to keep the rope from scarring the tree bark (could damage the tree or limb).

More on clotheslines at Project Laundry List.

Proof positive: Global warming

Project Laundry List is making air-drying and cold-water washing laundry acceptable and desirable as simple and effective ways to save energy.

Look at the information and products at The Clothes Line Shop, LLC. Or shop clotheslines and clothesline accessories at Amazon.com.

Casaubon’s Book.

Hat tip to Sharon at Casaubon’s Book.

Wired.com occasionally does a chemical analysis of common consumer products. I was breezing through the contents of coffee, when I noticed something interesting.

Caffeine is a diuretic, so coffee newbies pee out the water quickly; java junkies build up resistance.

Diuretics are sometimes prescribed for people with water retention problems, sometimes associated with circulation (heart) problems. My father was. And my father was a life-long coffee drinker. As in, according to this analysis from Wired.com, a diuretic-resistant person, due to a caffeine habit.

Check out the article, read about coffee contains compounds that fight cavities and free-radical damage (antioxidants), provide niacin when hot enough (160 degrees Fahrenheit), and also provide tastes, smells and ptomaine poison components.

Oh, what a colorful page. The United States Department of Agriculture has initiated a program encouraging all Americans and communities to relate to the food they eat, and to develop local sources. According to USDA news release 0465.09,

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today launched a new USDA website for the ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative to continue the national conversation about developing local and regional food systems and finding ways to support small and mid-sized farms.

. . .

The ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative includes such major agricultural topics as supporting local farmers and community food groups; strengthening rural communities; enhancing direct marketing and farmers’ promotion programs; promoting healthy eating; protecting natural resources; and helping schools connect with locally grown foods. USDA also began a pilot program aimed at improving the health and wellness of federal employees by serving local, nutritious food at USDA cafeterias.

Of course, localization and encouraging small and medium sized farms seems to contradict the effort captured by the house-passed H.R. 2749 Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. According to the Congressional Research Service (part of the Library of Congress), as reported on GovTrac.us:

6/8/2009–Introduced.
Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 – Amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to set forth provisions governing food safety. Requires each food facility to: (1) conduct a hazard analysis; (2) implement preventive controls; and (3) implement a food safety plan. Requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to: (1) issue science-based performance standards to minimize the hazards from foodborne contaminants; (2) establish science-based standards for raw agricultural commodities; (3) inspect facilities at a frequency determined pursuant to a risk-based schedule; (4) establish a food tracing system; (5) assess fees relating to food facility reinspection and food recall; and (6) establish a program for accreditation of laboratories that perform analytical testing of food for import or export. Authorizes the Secretary to: (1) order an immediate cessation of distribution, or a recall, of food; (2) establish an importer verification program; and (3) quarantine food in any geographic area within the United States. Defines the term “color additive” to include carbon monoxide that may affect the color of fresh meat, poultry products, or seafood. Requires country of origin labeling on food and annual registration of importers. Provides for unique identifiers for food facilities and food importers. Deems a food to be adulterated if an inspection is delayed or refused. Requires the Secretary to establish a corps of inspectors dedicated to inspections of foreign food facilities. Sets forth provisions governing the reorganization of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) field laboratories and district offices. Gives the Commissioner of Food and Drugs subpoena authority with respect to a food proceeding. Establishes whistleblower protections.

The scary part of this is the immense penalties – suitable for someone contaminating food for hundreds of millions of people – on someone with a backyard garden, selling at a roadside stand or farmers market, or a retailer that sells food or something that might go into food – animal or people food – that isn’t regulated as a restaurant. Or that hauls food. Note the required and surprise warrantless inspections, required certifications (and associated testing), record keeping. All things that seem intended to run everyone but Monsanto’s ten biggest customers out of food production. And surprise, Monsanto had a hand in drafting the bill.

Not that I am bitter.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions has been considering this bill since August 3, 2009, after the House passed it July 30, 2009.

And, yes, I did email Senator Harkins (D-IA), committee chair, about exempting local producers and local produce distributors.

Geekdads at Wired.com describe 30 venerable children’s games, from Button, Button, Who’s got the Button? to jumping rope and Red Rover – and Kick the Can.

The rules and play for non-tech games can enliven vacation days, picnics, and recess. Almost all are low carbon footprint, most are organic, and few require buying gear – maybe an empty can, a jump rope or two, or a play parachute.

Play on!

I was thinking about Sharon’s apocalyptic, if optimistic (she believes many of us can survive the approaching end of the American economy) Peak Oil prospects. And paint. We use paint for decoration, many of us, but some of us remember it is intended to preserve wood, too. And when we can’t afford to ship paint or cement from once side of the state to the other, let alone from China, then what alternatives do we have? Quick – everyone put in an acre of flax? And the re-learn how to press oils from flax seed for linseed oil. I need to look up why they call fabric made from the fibers of flax linen, and the oil pressed from flax seed is called linseed oil. Likely a bit of obscure history there.

What isn’t obscure is the long history of linseed oil and preserving and sealing wood – and creating a lasting and beautiful finish, too. Anyway, back to paints, if you want something brighter or more versatile than linseed oil.

From Mother Earth News, the original guide to living wisely, Make Safe, Natural Paint:

If you’d like to create a warm and inviting living space, consider using homemade, eco-friendly paints. Using natural materials is a great way to bring the outdoors in, and they’re easier on your home because they can allow painted surfaces to release moisture naturally. Plus, most commercially manufactured paints contain toxic materials or petroleum-based ingredients that are energy-intensive to produce.

The recipes an information make good reading, whether you are counting on Ace Hardware still being there after the end of things as we know it, or just want to reduce the number of toxic chemicals in the paint shed.