Wednesday, June 04, 2014

My Yahoo! II - a farmer blogs ecology

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“Our primary health care should begin on the farm and in our hearts, and not in some laboratory of the biotech and pharmaceutical companies.”
― Gary Hopkins
I'm a Farm Wife... and I hate GMOs.
sweetsustainability.net
I’m a Farm Wife. And I Hate GMOs. I’m a farm wife – of a grain farmer. A GMO grain farmer. There’s been a lot of heated debates about GMOs lately, as there should be, and it seems like I hear the s...

a link.
March 20
"Lawns – those myopically obsessive (and evil) urban, suburban, and increasingly rural monoculture eyesores that displace native ecosystems at a rate between 5,000 and 385,000 acres per day* in favor of sterile, chemically-filled, artificial environments bloated with a tremendous European influence that provide no benefits over the long term; no food, no clean water, no wildlife habitat, and no foundation for preserving our once rich natural heritage. And there’s the unbearable ubiquitousness of mowing associated with such a useless cultural practice"
Why prairies matter and lawns don't
healthylandethic.com
Prairies - those critically endangered and complex ecosystems understood by few and misunderstood and destroyed by millions of people. Lawns - those myopically obsessive (and evil) urban, suburban,...

a link.
21 hours ago
The way commercial hog growers fatten pigs is not really that different from how most North Americans live.
How to Fatten Pigs and People
www.wellfedhomestead.com
We raise pigs. We currently have 24 pigs on pasture. Needless to say, fattening pigs is on our mind. Our last pigs, American Guinea Hogs, ate way too much feed for the amount of meat we got off of them (1,000 lbs of feed each–roughly $500, and they only produced 50 lbs of meat!!)....


Want Crohn's? Buy milk and beef from the grocery store.
www.wellfedhomestead.com
We just purchased a second Jersey. My husband met the previous owner at the vet, where he had testing done, and where he was able to ask a lot of questions.

"The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort."
 
 
 
 
 


http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating
Photo: "The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort." http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating


Australia May Be Complicit In Killing Its Own Citizens And Many Others
Would you be comfortable if Australian security personnel were enabling the killing of Australian citizens who had not been charged with crimes, who had not faced a trial and who were in a country that Australia was not at war with? 
These are the questions at the heart of a long overdue debate, because Australian security personnel are reportedly doing exactly that.
Last month it was reported that two Australian citizens, Christopher Havard and Muslim bin John had been killed by a United States drone strike in Yemen – a country with whom neither the USA nor Australia claims to be at war. Neither man had been charged with any crime.
The Australian government denies any involvement in or prior awareness of the operation. However, mounting evidence suggests that the joint Australian-American defence facility at Pine Gap outside Alice Springs is intimately involved in the US’s drone strikes. Personnel at Pine Gap do not fire the drones’ weapons, but they show drone operators where to point their barrels. 
Since 2001, thousands of people have been killed in covert US drone strikes in places like Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. The strikes are conducted secretly by the CIA or the US military’s joint special operations command. 
Many people are concerned that there are a disproportionate number of civilians among the dead and that there is no mechanism by which to investigate and hold accountable the US for those deaths. The UN is currently investigating around 30 drone strikes to assess whether those incidents caused excessive civilian casualties. 
It is possible that civilian deaths from drone strikes could constitute war crimes and serious human rights abuses, such as extrajudicial killing.  If the allegations about Pine Gap are true, then Australian officials who provide information upon which drone strikes are based could be complicit in any abuses committed by the Americans. 
Civilian harm and legal risks for Australian personnel are only part of the problem. The current secret, unregulated drone war sets other dangerous precedents.
In September 2013 the UN expert on extra-judicial killing warned that drones are increasingly accessible and affordable and undermine global stability.

While some government information may need to be withheld for national security reasons, the government can safely provide answers to some basic questions. Is Australia at war with any state or armed group? Is Pine Gap’s intelligence used to target and kill people overseas? If so, what is the legal justification for our involvement?  Have Australian personnel at Pine Gap been advised as to any risk they face of complicity in war crimes or other violations of Australian or international law?  
Australia opposes the death penalty at home and abroad, yet our government has shown little regard for the deaths of its own citizens without trial.
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