...then you've made your life contingent on rivers

I just finished reading River Horse, A Voyage Across America by William Least Heat-Moon. It's the true story of his trip across the United States via river, but there are such poetic moments that it's hard to believe it's real. The author lives in the town where I went to college, and I share his appreciation of the lower Missouri River. Here are some great quotes, mostly from the latter half of the book, because that's when I started taking note of the words. I'll have to go back and read the first half again.

p. 235: "I said, If nature undoes immediately what we work years to do, then we're not doing it right."
p. 345: (quoting Pilotis) "'That river isn't about people - it's too primeval. When I see an ocean, I don't see time, but on the Missouri, I see time everywhere, along the eroded banks, down the shallow bottoms in those worn and rounded stones, even in the current. Flow and erosion, flow and erosion. The valley is the face of a clock, and the hour hand's the moving river, always showing how our days are ebbing, getting washed downstream. Civilization will run out long before the sun burns up and turns rivers back into planetary gases.' 'And later: Stand on the water's edge and see how easy it is to imagine a valley before you existed - then imagine it in a time when you're long gone. That river scours existence, pulls solidities loose and flushes them away. To it, our days are no more than cottonwood fluff. Our little selfish ploys and conceited aspirations are just so much sediment. People are about cleverness. A river's about continuance. We talk about dams and wing-dikes, but we don't need to fret about that Missouri. It's not endangered - we are. When I'm out on the water, I don't worry about it. I worry about me. I'm just too small for that river.'"
p. 355: "That night the Photographer reminded me of a famous line from Aldo Leopold, author of the celebrated book A Sand County Almanac: 'One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.' But that was two generations ago, and now the world is not so lonely for those who act on behalf of our planet."
p. 433: (quoting Pilotis) "Why do you think our passage must be continual travail? You've got to adjust to going downhill. Quit uprivering. Just follow the drainage down."
p. 453: (quoting a woman in a bar) "In full certainty, she said, 'When a man takes to the road, even if it's a river, he's running away, but when a woman takes off, she's looking for something.'"
p. 459: "Pessimism and negativism are cankers in the soul of long-distance voyagers, and continuance of journeys owes about as much to blind faith as realistic assessment - at least, that is my interpretation, drawn from reading many travelers' accounts, including those of Columbus."
p. 462: (a discussion between the author and Pilotis) P: "Does the ease of downstreaming make you second-guess yourself about refusing to take a jet boat up the River of No Return so you could have cooperated with the flow of the Missouri for halfway across the continent?" WLH-M: "'No, I said, because those two rivers forced us to earn passage - I think it's like rock climbing where the point is to go a difficult way, otherwise ascent is almost meaningless - the object isn't just to get to the top but to get there in such a way you learn the nature of the mountain.'... 'Four-lane highways are for passing, not passage.'"
p. 474: (quoting Pilotis) "The best human beings can do is borrow a river. We can live in a forest, in the mountains, in the earth, in the grasslands, but not in a river. That's strange for creatures two-thirds water."
p. 491: "On that hundredth night I understood that I had gone and entered a place, and I knew where I'd gone, but where I'd entered I had no idea. When our voyage was only a memory, where would I wash up? Just where is the great delta of old river travelers? When the journey is done, quo vadis? That's a question adventurers leave out of their accounts..."
p. 492: (the author remembering a conversation between him and his ex-wife) "The winter before, I had heard, 'Are you going to trade a boat trip for our marriage?' an impossible question for me since to walk away from the river, once the idea of crossing took hold of me, was to walk away from a long dream, a deep aspiration. The voyage was not more significant than the marriage because it had become one pillar of it - or, at least, one pillar of my life. Either way, I believed a long rivering necessary to my continuance as a man. To the question I said, If I fail even to try the trip I won't be worth being married to. And I heard, 'Then you've made your life contingent on rivers.' To that, I could say nothing."

Female leadership

If Hillary Clinton becomes our next president, would Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer run in the future?

Choose Your Candidate

I just took the Washington Post Choose Your Candidate Quiz. The questions are organized by topic, and the participant chooses which candidate response they most agree with. The participant doesn't know which candidate gave which response, and they can choose to hide or show the tally by candidate. Some responses are more obviously linked to certain candidates, but half the fun is guessing. I will not divulge who the quiz says my candidate is, but I have a few initial reactions:
1. You can take either the Democrat or the Republican quiz. When I have some free time, I'll take the other quiz. I'm curious to know what it would tell me, or whether it would just frustrate me. However, it would definitely help me brush up on what the other party has to say.
2. The quiz presents positions as talking points, which we all know are mostly BS anyway. It just goes to show you that the content carries less weight than the style of wording in politics. Just because a candidate says things in appealing ways doesn't mean they're more qualified to lead.
3. Does it really matter whether the quiz results align with whom you already support? How many people would change their mind after taking this quiz? Maybe it depends more on how decided you were before or what your experience has been with the candidates.
4. I'm definitely doing more research on the candidates. I know whom I'm voting for, but I also want to know more about all of our potential Presidents.

Stem Cell Breakthrough

Two weeks ago, scientists announced that they discovered a way to create embryonic stem cells from skin cells, without any use of the controversial embryos. If this technique is truly successful and proves to be the huge scientific breakthrough everyone believes it to be, then the stem cell debate is over. It also means that President Bush won.

I must admit, maybe that's okay. True, I joined the throngs of people outraged that Bush would defy scientific reasoning and refuse on moral grounds to support embryonic stem cell research. But being President of the United States is a tough job in which you're called upon to make decisions that will never appease everyone. At the end of the day, you do what you think is right.

Put yourself in his shoes. Try to make a controversial decision between what you feel is right for the country and what others want you to do. (You may think that just because you align with a certain political party that such an issue may never come up, but these days, you just don't know, and what you think you believe may be tested at some point.)

What President Bush did was put his foot down about what he felt was right, forcing the scientific community to find a solution that won't pose a moral dilemma for some people. So scientists did just that. Whether the administration sufficiently supported scientists working on such projects is another story that requires more investigation. But in the long run, if we now have the technology to do stem cell research that will pass the moral test and receive lots of new funding, isn't that what's best for the country?

Thanksgiving delights

This Thanksgiving, I had turkey for dinner. But it wasn't just any turkey. This turkey came from a farm nearby, where the birds were truly free-range, ate grain by the handful and all the bugs they could snatch up, and met their fate in a humane way. I bought this turkey from a farmer I know, whose farmer friend actually raised the turkeys. They were dispatched last Sunday, picked up on Tuesday, and brought to the table on Thursday. The farmer I know sends her children to a local school, which she must pay for, and she raises and sells her own chickens, ducks, and eggs. She and the turkey farmer buy their feed and other supplies from local stores, so my money is supporting local businesses instead of some big conglomerate hundreds of miles away.

Ours was a 10-pounder, lean, and more than enough for three people. We spread olive oil and herbs under the skin and all over the top, and stuffed onions and carrots in the cavity. Although not as tender as a factory-raised bird, the meat was so flavorful and went down well with a dab of cranberry sauce. We even cooked and pureed the giblets, a fine feast for my kitty. Picking the rest of the meat from the bone after dinner was strangely satisfying in a primitive way. It was good to know where my meat came from, even if nothing else on the table was organic or sustainable. I can preach to my family all I want, but only they can can take the step to commit to sustainability. My dad now recycles, and I consider that a big step.

Small realizations

Last night, I went to a meeting of the local chapter of the Association of Environmental Professionals. Following dinner was a presentation about new state rules for stormwater management, a rather technical topic. Not only did I know exactly what they were talking about, I wanted to ask questions. I guess I truly am an environmental professional. Now if only we had some stormwater to manage...

Also, I'm back on coffee. I tried drinking black tea instead, but I'm sorry, tea is just not coffee. And I refuse to feel ashamed for my 1 to 2 cups a day.

The Primaries

As expected, the media are full of political blather about who's ahead, who's going to win, what surprises lie ahead, and the likes. A few points have been made that could change things completely. First of all, polls say that Hillary is ahead, but the participants of those polls are only people who could be reached via land line, thus eliminating anyone with only a cell phone. This means that a large percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 30ish don't have a voice in the polls. Also, Iowa's early primary means that many students registered to vote in Iowa won't be back from winter break in time to vote, leaving them out of a critical decision. But those are the people whose voices matter most, because the next president will really be our president. He or she will have the future of economy, the environment, health care, young injured veterans, foreign relations, and much more, in his or her hands. That's why even the primaries matter so much. Anything could happen. Everyone should vote, even if they think their candidate won't win. The right to vote is like our muscles. You have to exercise your right to vote in order to keep it strong and powerful. Even if you never enter a body-building competition or run a marathon or even lift heavy things, your muscles keep your body working properly. Public participation in choosing our representatives keeps our democratic system healthy and strong. So please, register now and make sure you vote in your primary, even if it looks like the candidates have already been chosen. Use your voice and exercise your political muscles. Send a message to the country about what change you want to see.

The last obstacle removed

My greatest regret since moving to the South is that I have not been able to indulge in the barbecue scene down here. Although I recently decided to eat some meat again, I vowed to remain loyal to locally produced, sustainably raised meat only. Which excludes barbecue, unfortunately.

Until now. Opening November 26th, The Pit in Raleigh will source local, sustainably raised pork and locally grown produce. Oh man, I can't wait.

Finally, the deluge

It's raining. Hard. It's been raining since Wednesday morning, and they say it won't stop til Saturday afternoon. This means less guilt about showering, doing dishes, flushing the toilet. It means we can have a contained fire at the Halloween party this weekend. But still, there's a pumpkin shortage and the corn crops are small, and there are no local apples or pears at the store. This rain, it's probably not a drought-buster by any means, but it helps. It means we'll have water past Christmas, which was an iffy prospect before. But what happens when the taps run dry? Where do we get water when that happens? Let's hope the rain dance works.

Reading cats' minds

So my new kitty Molly has been living with me for a month now, and every day, she amuses me a little more. Today, I learned something new about her. Molly is not just any old domestic medium shorthair, she is some sort of jungle cat obsessed with dead vegetation. Well, really any vegetation in general. I thought it was weird that she likes to sit curled up in my plant by the window, which is on a teetery stand and is usually freshly watered. (If you have a cat, by the way, you can probably see what's coming. Window plant + teetery stand + wet soil = cat jumping out of plant and knocking it over, spilling dirt all over the place.)

But today, I witnessed two things I have never seen a cat do before:
1. She picked up a dead leaf in her mouth and carried it into another room, where she "hid" it under the coffee table. What in the world would a ferocious carnivore want with a dead leaf? I think she has done this before, as I have found dead leaves "hidden" under my desk as well.
2. I was eating a bowl of grapes, pulling them off the clusters of stems. Molly took a stem cluster from the bowl with her paw, picked it up with her mouth, put it on the floor and played very diligently and protectively with it. It's as if she had done so a million times and knew just how to bat, catch, and chew the stems. Where would she learn such a thing? Maybe in her previous life, she was a barn cat at a winery.

No End in Sight

Last night, I saw the movie "No End in Sight," which is about the rebuilding of Iraq from just after the war started until just after the 2006 election, when Donald Rumsfeld resigned. It seemingly makes no judgments about whether the war should have happened, it just examines the immense disaster zone that Iraq has become. It's a poignant movie, and depressing as hell, and we just waked away scratching our heads at how a very small group of people in power in Washington DC could create such a quagmire, despite the effective and honest efforts of so many others on the ground in Iraq. Go see it, if only to inspire you to vote for the very best politicians who have the best chance of making our country (and the world) better for everyone.

Admission

It's been two years since I went ovo-lacto-pescatarian (veg+sustainable eggs/dairy/fish), and to celebrate, I ate a burger and a piece of Italian sausage. ONLY because it was served to me by the farmers who raised those burgers and sausage sustainably on their very own farm. The burger was just okay, but the sausage was sweet heaven. This doesn't mean I'll be chowing on jerky daily or anything, it just means I'll indulge in some sustainably raised meat now and again. I still love my beans.

And no, my stomach did not explode from eating meat after going 2 years without it. It just felt like it would because I ate too much food. Cow is some filling stuff, yo.

The New Year and such

This is the first year ever that I didn't do anything for the Jewish New Year, and the only parts I really miss are the food. Eggy challah bread with honey is divine. Maybe I'll bake some this weekend.
Anyway, a new year always brings new opportunities and new challenges. Our farm group is now official, and we got a grant to pay for some events like a sustainable dinner series and perhaps a speaker. Today I got an email from two different people about the group's involvement in other activities on campus and beyond. Even though the farm workdays weren't my idea, it's so exciting to be a part of something new and engaging. The new students are psyched, which means we'll be able to pass the torch instead of fizzling away at the end of the year. In the meantime, it's still hot out. We're looking forward to 80-degree weather because it's cooler than the 95-degree days we've been having. I'm more used to it now, but I miss my hot coffee in the morning.

That's the opportunity, or at least one of them. Although, like usual, there seem to be more challenges to wince at than opportunities to daydream about. Between my master's project, my economics class, and the calculus I'm still trudging through, I'll just be happy to make it to graduation. People say that God gives you only what you can handle, and even if I don't always really believe that, the idea of it helps me get through the day.

This weekend, we went to the coast and took the long scenic way back. Most of the North Carolina coastal plain is filled with small towns, full of churches but little else. The interesting thing about this state is that unlike in the Midwest, where the faces are all white in the small towns, here, there's probably a mix because of the state's history. I'd be proud of the diversity if there wasn't such an economic status divide among races.

One more thought: shopping for cat food is hard for a vegetarian. I settled on organic kibble and natural (not organic) canned food that at least listed mostly real animal products as the first ingredients. The kibble was the same price as the other stuff, and the cans weren't on sale but not more expensive than most original prices. But still, most of this stuff is just so bad. Is it better to get the fish flavors instead of chicken or beef? I'll have to do more research on this.

News update

A few posts ago, I mentioned that BP was planning to dump more pollution into Lake Michigan. Well, the Chicago Tribune reported on August 24th that BP is changing its plans and vows to find ways to prevent the increase in pollution. Read it here. Let's hope they stick to their promises, both publicly and in actual operation.

Now, it's personal

I just found out that the federal government rates the regional transit development projects a low priority because there still isn't high intensity of development here. Yet. So the question becomes: build transit infrastructure in preparation of the boom we know is coming, or wait til the population influx overwhelms the system and the development is overdue?
There's also something no one is saying officially, but they're certainly keeping it in mind. The federal government won't fund these projects because the money needed is going toward the war instead. So they're waiting it out to see what the new administration will do. In the meantime, local infrastructure all over the country is crumbling or insufficient because of this costly war we're not going to win. This isn't new information, really, but it shows that contrary to what I previously thought, the light rail and improved bus service plans aren't held back because of local politics. They're held back because national politics have hijacked local agendas.

Rain

It finally rained yesterday, for what feels like the first time all summer. Still, we only got about half an inch. The town of Creedmoor, about 20 miles northeast of here, has to pipe in water from a nearby town because its water supply is spitting out sludge. I've never heard of a town just running out of water before, especially not when the rest of the country is drowning. It's crazy. At this point, we're wishing for a hurricane just to bring water to the parched land.

Generation Gap

It has been an eye-opening summer, especially the past few days. Saturday, I watched The Drug Years, a television series on VH1 about drug use in the 20th and 21st centuries in the context of music, pop culture, and politics. I had seen the series before, but I watched because following was The U.S. vs. John Lennon. I fell asleep, but thanks to DVR, I was able to watch it this afternoon, after reading an article about President Bush's driving philosophy during his time in office. There are many many many differences between Bush and John Lennon, but you can tell they both came from the same generation. One might argue that if Bush's father hadn't been a Republican president during the backlash to the "hippie" generation, he'd be more like the rest of us. In any case, I'm still sort of processing the whole thing, but in the meantime, I'll say this: it's incredible how the people who grew up during the biggest revolution of recent history have allowed the country to go in quite the opposite direction.

Summer recap

I left work on Friday, my last day, and went directly to Charlotte. When I returned yesterday, summer was over. Today was the first school-related meeting, and now it's time to get cracking. So before I dive in, a summer recap.

Work: Turned out to be a satisfying summer overall. Being respected as a member of the academic community is a nice, if strange, feeling. I met with environmental professionals, city planners and commissioners, and state agency employees. I attended city and state commission meetings, committee meetings, and legislative hearings. I did lots of research about topics I thought I knew a thing or two about. Professionally, it may or may not take me where I want to be, but I made a lot of connections and learned a lot about the functionality (and dysfunctionality) of state and local political processes, environmental and development policies, and how advocacy can be more than petitions and postcards. I also worked with a great bunch of people who work hard and play hard. One thing is for sure: I would not have known how to do my job without the past year of classes and work, and it reaffirmed the value of this whole experience.

School: Took a couple classes with professionals, which helped put my coursework into perspective and taught me some essential new things I sadly would not have learned in my required coursework--another valuable aspect of local internships.

Play: Hiked, biked, kayaked, shopped locally, visited the mountains, traveled. Made new friends, listened to live music, cooked new food, splurged on camping gear. Does it get any better?

And so, a few take-away lessons about North Carolina:
1. Locals will fully accept you as a Midwesterner (meaning Outsider), but they will be overjoyed and relieved to learn that you want to stay and help make things better here.
2. In many arenas, things are still very much a Good-old Boy white male's game - women in politics must be strong enough to be taken seriously but must still seem deferential to men. And, the state government is just now passing legislation acknowledging the Wilmington race riots in 1898
3. It's nice living closer to the production of the food I eat. No more Styrofoam tomatoes or mushy cukes.
4. Summer is hot. Unlike other parts of the country, there are no 70-degree days here. During the day, it's 80 or 90 or 100, and at night it rarely goes below 65 degrees. And I'm sorry, but that's how it should be. Cool summers in Chicago never felt right to me. Then again, ask me how I feel when I'm walking around campus in 92-degree heat.
5. I'll never get over the Southern accent. It's music to my ears.

Paddling

Today I went kayaking on the Eno River, in an area of calm waters where the Eno, Little, and Flat rivers become the Neuse River, which flows southeast to the ocean near Beaufort, NC. Somewhere along these rivers, there really are rapids, but our trip was calm and easy. The biggest excitement was a fan boat that came through the opposite direction. It has been so dry this year that the river was pretty low and slow, but the scenery was beautiful. Coming back upstream, where the Eno and one of the rivers merge, the sun was setting over the trees through the haze and contrasted the glowing green of the grass and algae. A white bird (heron? egret?) stood still and graceful in the distance.

I think it was last year that I paddled up the Chicago River, during which we were told to try not to fall in because the water was less than fresh. One whiff of the river upstream was all the convincing I needed to stay in my boat. It may soon get grosser, now that BP has obtained a permit to dump more pollution into Lake Michigan from its plant in Indiana.

Coincidentally, I've been reading River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon, and tonight is the premiere of Feasting on Asphalt 2, in which Alton Brown samples the world of food from along the Mississippi River. These guys have it right - traveling by river certainly gives you a much different view of the world than you get by road or train. Yet another reason to save our great bodies of water.

Growing pains

The bf and I were talking the other day about the challenges this country faces under our watch. Our grandparents lived through the Depression, some of the worst times in our country's history. Then, things got better. Our parents were born in the most populous generation yet, and with them came a huge cultural revolution. Their work during the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Rights movement, the Gay Rights movement, and an overall acceptance of all kinds of ideas and lifestyles has allowed the country to really grow and prosper. It has been a good thing, for sure, but now we're getting to big for our britches.

Many cities grew so much, so quickly, that they didn't stop to think about the impact that has on our aging infrastructure, as evidenced by recent dam failures, bursting steam pipes, and collapsing bridges. The threat of terrorism may scare us, but our own structural weaknesses may be the actual cause of our eventual demise. That, or our failing food production system. Factory farms produce mass quantities of tasteless junk, eroding and depleting the soils and polluting our water, air, and digestive systems. Obesity was once a "luxury" of the rich; now, it's cheaper to eat foods that make us fat, in large part because our crop subsidies reward soy and corn, the key ingredients in most of the unhealthiest (and cheapest) food out there.

Surely, we haven't seen the end of all this political and structural turmoil. Culturally, some things are better, but it seems we're more willing to accept wrongdoings, even though they make us queasy. Since Watergate, the political process has really been led astray and people have lost faith in their elected leaders. After all, look how screwed up our government is now, and every new scandal elicits little more emotion than "meh, what else is new?" Look at what the sports world has become: doping in baseball and cycling, dogfighting in football, gambling and cheating in football - things that we all know are wrong but have come to accept as par for the course. An interviewee on NPR mused that this is a generational thing, at least in cycling, and that we can only hope to stop future generations from such behavior because there's no hope for this one. The author of a new book about selling out to corporate America (read the interview on alternet.org) rings true for many of us idealistic twenty- and thirty-somethings who want to change the world but can't afford to support ourselves on the salaries of such jobs. Instead, we take the corporate job, promising ourselves that we'll only do it until we've made a good living and saved some money, and then we'll give back to the world. But by then, it might be too late. We'll have aging parents to support, without a Medicare or social security system to help out. And if we have kids, we'll have to support their increasingly expensive needs for schooling, food, health care, and whatever hot trends they just have to follow.

None of this is news to anyone at this point. Yes, I'm whining, because right now, I don't have it so bad. But I'm one of those idealistic twenty-somethings with an expensive education that I'll be paying for many years down the road. Here in North Carolina, a huge opportunity exists to make some real changes in the way agriculture, development, and conservation happen. All those people who no longer have open space in the Northeast are moving down here, grabbing up open space without any plan in sight. I could start a 1,000 Friends of North Carolina. I could lead a strong progressive campaign against the very vocal naysayers, working for smarter development planning, boosting political and economic support for sustainable agriculture, creating stronger environmental policies in the state. But I have student loans. I have hand-me-downs and oldies-but-goodies that will need replacing in a few years. I want to get married (green wedding!) and own a home (solar panels or sustainable building materials!). Maybe I want to have kids someday (although who wants to bring a child into this world as it is now?).

Looks like I have my work cut out for me.