Be a good scout - leave it cleaner than you found it.

I get really irritated in public bathrooms. How can folks be so disrespectful of others? Here's a few rules I suggest.....

If you drop a piece of toilet tissue - pick it up!
If you must line the seat with tp - throw it away or flush it!
Sit down - that's what a SEAT is for.

If you must perch, hover etc - clean up your sprinkles - you're going to wash your hands anyway -aren't you?
Flush.
Use your paper towel to wipe your puddles off the sink counter.
Throw the paper towel in the trash.
If the paper towels in the trash are piling up - use yours to push them down.
If you drop your paper towel -pick it up- and -throw it away!

If we all made respectful use of the facilities more places would let us use the facilities, we could have paper towels instead of weak winded blowers and we wouldn't have to go to automatic flushers which scare children.

Sun stroke?

Today was an absolutely gorgeous summer day in CNY. The sky was clear, it wasn't too hot and the sun was shining like crazy. Walking past the bus stop I overhear 2 coeds trying to figure out where to find something so I ask if I can help. "Oh thank you", they said," we're trying to find a tanning salon." Oh - well let's see. That big yellow thing in the sky is the sun. If you stay outside, you'll get a tan. FOR FREE.

BEEP BEEP

I am beginning to hate automatic door locks on cars. The locks that respond to a "clicker" on your key ring. Someone on this block has one. They seem to come home about 2 am, and instead of just pushing the lever inside their car, they use the remote to lock it. This wakes me up. Then sometime in the early morning, either they or another neighbor goes to school/work and they use the remote and their car goes beep-beep and wakes me up again. Couldn't we just use the key?

Behind the Handlebars

I haven't written here in a long time. I have been focusing my energy on another site about farming. It is very specific so doesn't soothe the need to rant about other cultural annoyances. Another change is a life without a car. I have given up the steering wheel for handlebars. My bicycle gives me an opportunity to see things at a more "ground level" so to speak, but also requires more attention to traffic on my part with less time for musing.

I live in a small city with great pride in it's bus service. I don't have a lot of experience but it is probably very good service for such a small city. The problem with the system is also the reason the system is as good as it is.

Our small city is home to a very large University. Finances dictate (supposedly) that everything in town must revolve around and cater to the University. Buses (I looked it up, that's the plural for bus) go through campus more than anywhere else, and for longer periods of time. The buses to many of the shopping areas stop running before the stores close. So if you need to shop after work, or if you work the evening shift, you are out of luck. However if you are a student who has spent the night into the wee hours of the morning, at a local bar, there's a bus home for you.

More on this later.

Has Democracy Failed?

I was watching a recent episode of Bill Moyer's Journal, that discussed why we can't get to Single Payer Healthcare (the insurance industry and big pharma won't let us) and why we can't fix the financial system properly (Wall Street and the banking industry won't let us). Does this mean that Democracy has failed (or is in the death throes)? At least Democracy by, for and of the people? It seems like every time our government says we can't get there from here it's because they are afraid of big money. Aren't they supposed to be more concerned about us and our vote?

I think we need some serious changes in election policy and rules, specifically in funding. I don't know how to keep elections inexpensive and balanced, and yet provide for a varied and fair candidate pool,but it's where we need to go. I'm tired of big money running my life when big money doesn't give a damn about my life.

Grocery Store Give In

I was a bad person yesterday. I went shopping at a regular grocery store. I was on my way home from my Granddaughter's school and I needed a few things. The regular grocery is on that end of town. I knew once I got home I wouldn't want to head out the other end of town to the organic grocery. Besides, I just needed a couple of things. Yeah - we've all said that and then been enticed by the displays.

Fortunately, as I was on foot, I would have to show some moderation. 

Well, they were having a sale on meat. Buy one get / one for free. I came home with two packages of pork chops from mistreated hogs and two packages of ground beef that could be laced with more e-coli than the body could take. Peppers shipped in from some other hemisphere and a box of cookies. The sweets are the hardest things for me to resist.

It's just so easy and so attractive at a supermarket. Whether your bad choices are bad for the environment, your health or both, as mine were. Everything is so pretty. 

Oh and by the way. You know those almost clear, so lean there is no flavor pork chops you get at the store? You can grow tasty, lean pork chops by just giving the hog enough time to grow. Instead of over feeding them a special diet to hurry them to market. Slow feed them a healthy diet. They will be lean and tasty.

Late Winter Morning

About 15 years ago I was standing on a friend's porch looking over the valley at our town. It was early morning and very quiet. The fog was clearing and we could see the homes and businesses starting to peek through the mist. All of a sudden it occurred to me that I could not hear a single cow. Since we lived in the farm country of rural central New York State this was indeed odd. I looked around and pointed out the different farmsteads that no longer had livestock.

In the mid 1970's when I moved to the area the small dairy farms were being replaced with larger dairies of 50 to 100 milk cows. Instead of stanchion or tie stall barns we were seeing the introduction of the free stall barn and milking parlor. These innovations allowed for more livestock to be cared for by fewer people. But these facilities often were less healthy for the animals even when operated judiciously by caring farmers. The design of the facility and the number of free roaming animals led to injuries. They were also less comfortable to work in, at least in the cold months in upstate NY, because they were wet and open without the collection of body heat from the cows. Generally these animals still had access to pasture ground even if only in the summer.

To go along with these operations were the installation of manure ponds. Namely large open ponds full of cow manure. Manure was scraped out of the free stall into a pond where it would accumulate until the farmer spread the manure on the land and plowed it under to fertilize the crops that would soon be planted. This allowed for two things, the use of less bedding under the cows reducing the volume of refuse, and timing manure spreading for the best use of its nutrients. It also helped paved the way for housing more livestock on a farm property than that property could sustain.

Now those 100 cow dairies have been replaced by farms with thousands of cows. The manure ponds have become open lagoons holding millions of gallons of cow manure. The cows spend their lives on concrete which is harmful to their legs and feet. 

What happened to the other farms? Their barns stand empty or have been torn down to reduce taxes and insurance premiums. Much land lays fallow. Much of it is producing feed for the few big farms and fields for the over spreading of manure from the factory farms. Thus neighbors become financially dependent on the CAFO that is poisoning their air and wells and ground water, and draining local aquifers and streams. 

For a very clear portrayal of this phenomena in an area that was ambushed by large hog facilities, go to WWW.aswesow.com