Brad’s Take

Billll’s Idle Mind ponders the dropout demographics of Colorado high schools, and appointing a math-challenged representative to head the state house committee on education.

—

I wonder, what was the charter when high schools were first proposed?

My understanding of the initial charter for compulsory education was to lay the foundation for a population informed enough to vote responsibly — reading, writing, arithmetic, social studies, geography, and how government works, through age 16 or the eighth grade.

If high school is meant for college preparation, I have a problem. College — especially law, business, engineering and sciences — divert people from returning to enrich and nurture their community, to the interests, enrichment, and security of nationa and special interests. So, if high school is intended to siphon (the best?) people from the community, then is a high graduation rate a failure to the state and to the community?

If high school is intended to nurture the community, then is it focused on what is needed in the community? If not, then perhaps those dropping out are seeing the nothingness of the emperor’s new clothes, are seeing that their attendance doesn’t benefit them or their community. When looking at dropout statistics, have we checked to look at how the community has communicated it’s needs to those students? How do horse shoer and diesel mechanic school dropout rates, across demographics, compare to the local high school?

Amongst the demographics of failures, there is another perspective that I think is important. Culture. The values and prejudices, celebrations, and rituals that an individual, family, home, or community lives by, I call “culture”. The Constitution forbids discrimination based on gender and race — cultural differences, though, aren’t intended to be protected beyond the scope of personal liberty. How do the demographics of the cultures of home and community compare to graduation rates?

How do graduation rates play out against various levels of engagement of adults in the household with the larger community? Degrees of family isolation from feelings of contributing to the community to being unwanted or hated by the community might just have an impact on young people, beginning to feel responsible for their choices, choosing to build whatever the heck high schools are building — or looking for an answer that is more in line with their home cultural and participatory orientation.

Then there are the issues of whether schools make choices based on what Federal money they can garner (personal advancement for grant writers/pr kudos for the district), what teacher unions demand, or what the community needs. Because while the “world gets smaller”, those that drop out live in smaller sections of the community. And that is *not* the focus of “modern education”.

The New York Times carries a story about Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce.

Stanford University scientists have weighed in on the “maybe not” side of the debate after an extensive examination of four decades of research comparing organic and conventional foods.

They concluded that fruits and vegetables labeled organic were, on average, no more nutritious than their conventional counterparts, which tend to be far less expensive. Nor were they any less likely to be contaminated by dangerous bacteria like E. coli.

Wow. Getting the USDA to label stuff “organic” doesn’t mean the same thing as what "organic" should mean. The USDA label has been well-leavened by political forces, comments by chemical companies, and other commercial forces. USDA Organic might mean avoiding some commercial chemicals, but it is a commercial label for commercial practices.

And note that the scientists relied completely on published literature to make their findings. They did no research, didn’t define what practices were “organic” or not. But, they did get their work published so they get to keep their jobs (getting work published regularly is a requirement for university professors to keep their jobs).

My understanding is that actually raising food in an organic manner usually trades off quantity of production for quality of product. Which means there is more cost to producing an organic vegetable or cut of meat. The USDA Organic label just means that commercial growers can tack on an extra 10% price just because.

And the story that university scientists discovered that organic stuff isn’t more nutritious made the New York Times. Might as well tell me that changes in the climate conclusively prove that the world will end December 21, 2012. Or that, given all the planets in the solar system are warming, that climate change proves cutting down old-growth forest (Asia, Amazon Rain Forest) changes the climate.

Radishes, carrots, potatoes. Easy – scratch some dirt, plant some seeds, watch the soil that it doesn’t dry out, watch the drainage so water doesn’t stand when it rains. Pull the weeds.

Pulling weeds is simpler if the ground is kept looser – hoeing cuts off some weed roots (you don’t hoe where your crop roots grow). And pulling weeds is more effective if you pull when the weeds are small – once a week might do, more often is better. Weeds are much more problem on soil that has not been a garden long.

Keep the weeds; compost them. You need to keep trimmings, even kitchen scraps for compost, too. Because when you harvest in your garden, the veggies and fruit you take, take from the soil. Working the ground takes minerals, takes fiber – compost helps keep the soil healthy, ready to grow more of what you want. Which is why it is better to get the weeds early – they rob your plants of less moisture from the soil, less nutrients from the soil, shade out the sunlight that makes your plants grow less- if they are enriching your compost pile sooner in the weed’s life.

Tomatoes. Learn to grow tomatoes, and many years you get a nice return. The more attention you pay to growing tomatoes, the better, most years, the harvest.

Beans. Beans are a great source of protein, many types dry well, and are easy (and cheap) to store for long periods of time. Great fiber, beans can be the center of meatless meals, if meat becomes difficult to come by (i.e., no refrigeration if the electricity is off, and you don’t have an Amish or RV ammonia-cycle freezer/refrigerator).

Peas. Peas are easy, shelling peas for fresh use is a time-honored family affair, easy and pleasant to share with a parent or child. Peas cook well, can be canned for storage, or dried.

Squash, gourds, melons, pickles, cucumbers,pumpkins. These gentle vines can be a bit irritating on the skin to handle. Give them lots of room – plant a few seeds in hills several feet apart. The good thing is that most cover the ground well – keep the weeds down as they start growing, and when they cover the ground they shade the soil so densely that weeds won’t be a problem. But separate species – these vines will inter-pollinate, and you lose the distinctive characteristics. Separate as widely as you can, species from species. Pumpkins here, squash there, watermelons over there, and the ButterNut squash out in the corn field.

Lettuce, cabbage – for garnish, cabbage fresh or kimchi or cooked or pickled provides vitamin C.

Bok Choi, rutabaga, yams, beets, celery, bell and other peppers, horseradish, rhubarb, these all grow in gardens, in various regions.

What about tobacco? Tobacco is grown in fields in South Carolina. Most people know that. It grows in Turkey, too, I guess. But what about your garden? The price of $4-15 a carton today makes me wonder why people aren’t growing the stuff in their garden.

Especially since tobacco has a long history of uses in healing – antiseptic, drawing infection, and other uses. Prepare and store tobacco for smoking in a pipe, for rolling in cigars – or if you have the papers even rolling in a cigarette recall the old-time ‘plug’ of solid-rolled tobacco? Manage the moisture when storing to keep the virtues of the tobacco intact. If nothing else, growing tobacco will leave you something to trade to those looking for an version of it.

Celery grows. In gardens. I found if you stick the heart of a stalk of celery in a glass, it will throw roots – and mature in a window box. Maybe a living room scented with growing celery isn’t the first thought that comes to mind, but like an aquarium or bird cage, adds an air of life, of shared space. And celery is very good, for dipping or spreading with peanut butter, cheese, refried beans – or honey butter.

Isn’t it Marigolds that you can plant around your garden? – and keep out many insect pests?

The old song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ that Melanie recorded some years ago, the lady that gave us, “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates/You’ve got a brand new key”. The song includes a line about ‘Farmer, farmer, put away the DDT. Leave the spots on the apples, but leave me the birds and the bees.” DDT was a nasty pesticide, and many in use today have to be handled correctly – all of them kill or maim *something*, including hopefully the targeted pest. But the issue was only partly about spots on apples – yes, an unblemished apple sells quicker, usually, outside a Farmer’s Market. But what about an apple with a worm? Or a bell pepper or cucumber or tomato? The cost to plant and till the soil is the same – so what about the 1/4 to 3/4 of the crop that withers or is consumed by weeds or insects – when the cost in labor and materials to raise a crop falls short of the return in food or sales, it gets stupid to plant the crop. Thus, for many crops, pesticides will be with us. Learn about this class of poisons, how and when to use them, what they mean about cleaning or using treated plants or animals. Choose wisely.

Right now, ‘fertilizer’ is something in a bag that Wal-Mart and Ace Hardware and the local garden center sells. Steer manure? Expect the local farmer to have some, but not in bags, not dried, and sterilized, and prepared. It still works well. Even sheep, and goat, and horse, and other livestock droppings. Maybe you can work out a deal – rake a pasture regularly, keep part of the droppings that would otherwise sour and kill the grass underneath it, gather a part and scatter the rest. Help keep down parasites and benefit the pasture, while gather some useful .. fertilizer. Throw the result on your compost pile, and biologic away!

Soil amendments include adjusting the pH of the soil – whether it is acid or alkaline (excess acid or deficit acid ions, compare to an even-steven balance of 7.0) – and mineral content. Potash, lime, and other materials occasionally come available.

And some plants change the soil around them. Legumes, such as beans and soybeans, alfalfa, enrich the nitrogen content of the soil they grow in. A walnut tree can amend base soil – note this is *not* a quick solution! Your county extension office or garden center can help you plan soil enrichment and amendment. You may want different soil balances for different crops. Some things prefer partial sun – plant in the shade of leafier, taller plants. Some like more acidity, others less.

Some garden products are perennials – trees, for instance. Strawberries. Rhubarb. Asparagus – be prepared to sow a bit of salt with the cuttings for asparagus.

Plan your garden. Lay out on paper, the amount of space for each packet or handful of seeds. Calculate the row spacing – some things need to be close, others can be, still others – cucumbers, tomatoes – need lots of space for one or three plants. When you plan, allow for when things mature. Today, we can read on the packet this one comes in in 45 days, that in 65. Try to plant time-wise, to stagger the crop – perhaps a row of lettuce is planted a bit each week, so that fresh lettuce matures over several weeks or months. Tomatoes will be good fresh – but you will want to them to be mostly ready to can all at the same time. Peas are nice fresh, and you can stagger the planting to extend when they will be ready to eat.

Sweet corn comes to mind with ‘fresh from the garden’. Corn, sweet or field corn (also called ‘dent’ corn) takes a lot of resource for the yield. If you have the space, then by all means, corn is a very good crop. Especially if you want a few rows of corn to space out some melon or pickle patches, or something you need to shade. Dent corn can provide livestock feed, corn meal, and wild bird seed.

And wild birds can be part of your post-Peak Oil program to manage insect pests, both garden pests and general people-type pests.

Did you know, with planning, that parts of your garden can be weeded by geese? Once the plants begin maturing, the geese look for newly-germinated plants – weeds. Quite efficient. And geese can be easy to keep, and pretty good for watch animals – it is *tough* to sneak up on a couple of geese.

You will want to consider fencing for your garden – to manage neighbor kids, and to control the theft of food by rabbits, squirrels, and other four-foot raiders and destroyers.

And maybe most important of all you can grow in a garden – is personal satisfaction, and a wholesome place to raise children, re-train adults, etc. “He who plants a seed and waits, believes in God.” My mother tacked that up in the kitchen, back home.

Heat metal, and it expands. Cool metal, it contracts. Expand, contract. Each cycle of expand, contract is like bending a piece of metal back and forth. The stress eventually develops local spots of rigidity, and tears. The tears accumulate until the piece separates.

Truck engines do that, too. You can lament the amount of fuel and idling truck engine burns, over the course of it’s life, but then you also have to count the repairs that were avoided, because the truck engine was kept at working temp.

We could get creative, and design truck engines that include wrapped-around insulation, with an embedded heating coil. That way a truck engine could be kept at running temp, or near to it, while turned off. Start it up again, and – less wear and tear, fewer repairs. Combine the temp blanket/heater with a lubricant circulation pump, and you get to save fuel – the operator doesn’t have to leave the engine running to avoid repairs, down time waiting for repairs, additional repair parts don’t need to be manufactured or transported or stored.

And that would be a really good idea. Maybe use a small, catalytic time hot water or steam generator.

In the mean time, we don’t really want the carbon footprint of building replacement trucks or engines, and no one could afford the cost.

So my idea is to build heated shelters in areas that get snow, and especially the norther tiers of states. Use geothermal energy to heat the structures, provide them, free, at interstate rest areas, make them affordable to truck stops. Combine the truck shelters with security and facilities to serve the drivers and truck lines. Demonstrate geothermal energy. Maybe combine the effort with national service programs to provide new jobs in constructing the shelters.

A truck shelter should not be heated above 60 degrees Fahrenheit. But a truck engine experiences much less stress at 60 degrees than at winter-time temps of -10 or -30 Fahrenheit.

Right now, there is a truck.  A big truck.  Rolling down the road.

That truck has an engine that drives the gears that makes the wheels go round.  The wheels grind their rubber against the pavement or blacktop or dirt or gravel, and scrape by to nudge the truck on it’s way.

While the engine is metering a tiny bit of fuel, a measure of air into each cylinder, waiting for the time to come that the fuel and air combine under pressure and heat, and explosively drive the piston part of the cylinder chamber away, to push a crankshaft, to twist a gear, to turn a wheel – the aftermath of the explosion in the cylinder is cleaned up.

After the fuel and the air have been burned, their exhaust products, water vapor, unburned fuel, any impurities in the air, will be vented through various mechanisms to limit the impact of the aftermath on the environment around the truck.

A bit of heat will remain.

When the air and fuel burn, they will heat the cylinder, the piston, the valves.  The heat will be conducted to the outside of the engine, and will warm the air around the engine.  This big truck engine is water cooled – water treated to manage boiling and impurities, is pumped into the engine to absorb heat.  The heated water is sent to a radiator that uses a driven fan to draw massive amounts of air through the coils of the radiator.  The radiator is designed to convey heat from the water to the air efficiently, and the cooled water is circulated back to the engine.  The heat carried from the engine is important.  Keeping the engine from overheating prevents overheating related breakdowns.  Too much heat can warp bolts and cylinders and pistons and gaskets and seals and ..  The potential for overheating damage runs from minor to quite major component failures.

So – why is the extra heat thrown away?  Instead of a radiator to heat the air around the vehicle, can’t that heat be transformed into stored energy, in the form of heat, or of ice (an ammonia-cycle freezer?), or of electricity, or compressed air, or ..?

We burn the fuel.  Why are we wasting the heat?

Sharon Astyk, Casaubon’s Book, is awesome.  Sharon potently advocates preparing for Peak Oil.  Peak Oil is a code phrase, or description of the event that will cause immense economic rearrangement.  Change is measured in pain.  The gist of Peak Oil, is that inexpensive energy – fossil fuels in particular – will soon reach (or have reached) the ‘peak’ availablility, while demand for energy will continue to grow.  The result will be that, as we saw last summer, other nations and new applications will introduces undreamt-of levels of demand.  The result?  The end of ‘cheap’ energy.

Where today a single family dwelling is the ‘American Dream’, suburb life and horrendous commute to work in mostly single-occupant vehicles, and easy access to cooking and heating fuels, and access to the electric utilities grid, will all be challenged.  Sharon advocates growing your own food, re-learning canning and housekeeping from times before the first electric appliances, and relying on ecology-friendly approaches.  Other Peak Oil views expect a massive shortfall in food availability – farmers that can’t afford to plant for the low price of produce, and transportation costs so high no one can afford the available food.  Loss of municipal water sources, fire and medical services may well follow, making the Great Depression and the attendant deaths from starvation and disease and suicide likely to reappear.

Me?  I think we should plan for something like Sharon plans for.  That rural communities and groups of families and neighbors will gather to share resources, skill sets, tools, and trade labor.  I grew up in 1960′s NW Iowa.  Some of our neighbors had a flat-rack (made for hauling hay bales),  A few had a baler.  Dad helped three or four neighbors bale their hay, then they helped bale ours and put it up in the barn.  No muss, no fuss – and no begging off.

That is certainly doable again.

I enjoy working with draft horses.  Working draft horses can be the center-point of a rural lifestyle of hard work, rewarding life, and a great place to raise kids.  Ask the Amish - they have believed that for centuries, Their Anabaptist forbears were persecuted for witchcraft in Europe – when their fields outperformed their neigbors.  The Anabaptists introduced what became today’s modern agriculture.  Simply rotating crops, devotion to maintaining soil quality, fertilizing – were weird and suspect practices, and caused many martyrs before they migrated to the New World.  Today their lifestyle mingles only lightly with the modern world.  And they still believe that working the soil is the right way to raise children.

We have Amish examples that we can live today without the electric utility that some Peak Oil analysts believe will be too expensive for half the families in the US to afford, by about .. umm .. 2012.  Three years, give or take.

Our grandparents and great-grandparents that lived through the Great Depression of the 1930′s, and the food rationing of World War II, grew much of their own food.  Even in cities and apartments, there were ‘victory gardens’ to supplement what food was available.  And there are many people that concede the Peak Oil worries are valid – that are already growing their Victory Gardens.

For a number of years, people have been  interested in a slower-paced life.  Small Farmers Journal, published quarterly in Sisters, OR, covers rustic skills and early recipes, working and training workhorses and oxen and goats, etc.  Rural Heritage magazine from Jackson County, TN, covers an Appalachian perspective of regressed living styles.  The venerable FoxFire books detail the elder skills and implements for those looking to retreat from modern life, Mother Earth News helps the back-to-nature people find their way.

I think, if Peak Oil hits as the analysts claim, that we will see prices skyrocket – then return to a higher level, then keep ratcheting ever higher.  Companies will lay off workers and close doors as costs to provide services and produce and transport products put them out of business.  Those few tilling the land in the old ways will have the best access to the food – that they grow.  Small communities of like-minded neighbors will share work and resources.  Many will find themselves sharing a home with others, some with families, some with others.  Ready, continuous access to propane, natural gas, electricity, heating oil, diesel fuel, and gasoline and ethanol will become intermittent and prices will become prohibitive.

Most food will be locally produced.  To assure the best availability of local food, the time is now to begin preferring and seeking out local producers.  Establish the market now, so that production increases to keep up – and will be available when food from other counties, other states, or across the ocean will become rarities.

What is the down side of preparing?  If it doesn’t happen in our lifetimes – we recover some skills from history, we learn to live with less reliance on fossil fuels, we (eventually) live healthier, more active lives, we save a ton of money.  And we provide a useful, sane role model for our kids.