Your Permaculture Home: Tending Your Microherds

A Latin American farmer once told a friend of mine, “Of course you have terrible soil problems in your country. What do you expect when you call it dirt?” In our culture, soil gets little respect. Most of the words for this essential substance are derogatory. When we want to know the worst about someone, we say, “Give me the dirt on this guy.” Something too raw for our liking is called “earthy.” We hold at arm’s length anything soiled, dirty, or muddy.

They live to prove we can live on less

The little patch of green sits hidden in a most unlikely neighborhood, nestled behind a blue-collar apartment complex off Northeast Killingsworth Street.

Here, on 1.6 acres, Pam and Joe Leitch are teaching people how to live on less.

For more than two years, they’ve operated the Portland Permaculture Institute, teaching classes on sustainable living while building their own little environmental amusement park.

Christians Rebuke Dr. Dobson

Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most powerful political voices for the Christian Right, has been officially rebuked and rebutted by a voice from within the Christian ranks. The Institute for Progressive Christianity (IPC), a recently christened research institute founded by a diverse group of moderate and progressive Christians, issued a crisp and confrontational reply to Dobson’s remarks made during the 11/22/06 interview on Larry King Live. This action has drawn fire from various neoconservative media sources, including Rush Limbaugh and a writer for the Townhall think tank.

US servicemembers “Appeal for Redress” has 900+ signatories calling for Iraq withdrawal

Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. The Appeal messages will be delivered to members of Congress at the time of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2007.

No Charge Debt Solutions

For the majority of Americans, debt is a part of life.

Consider, for example, a 2004 article by USA today columnist Barbara Hagenbaugh which stated that the average American carries $4,663 in credit card debt. In recent years, some journalists and politicians have placed that figure closer to $8,000. While it remains rare to find an individual without at least some form of debt in the United States, perhaps it’s even rarer to find a trustworthy, dependable source for help in eliminating that debt. John Turner, however, feels he may have developed a solution to the problem.

The Cash Cows of Personal Debt - The Credit Card Industry and Predatory Capitalism

The booming credit card business is one of the most profitable and destructive industries to ever emerge from the inventive capitalist mind. Citibank is raking in more money than Microsoft and Wal-Mart. Obscene profits are realized without lifting a finger to perform any physical work. In 2004 a single credit card company—the MBNA—realized 1.5 times the profits of fast food industry giant McDonald’s. Collecting on credit card debt is a very lucrative business.

Wars and rumors of war

We missed a Second Coming on Dec. 17. Jesus was supposed to arrive in Puerto Rico, in a televised event witnessed by billions. Jesus didn’t show. It was just as well, because another Internet prediction had Jesus returning in 2006, but only after a head-on collision between Earth and a 14.4 mile-long asteroid. Jesus would then rule in peace for a thousand years, which makes sense, since the civilizations left behind by the asteroid would be run by rock lichens and blue-green algae, organisms not noted for their belligerence.

Still, when the power went out in Sawtooth Valley on Dec. 16 and it was 30 below outside, I began to worry. Storms had cut power in Washington and Oregon, and I visualized the outage spreading east, power plant by power plant, substation by substation, until all was dark.

L.A. Urban Farmers Fight for Community Garden

Los Angeles authorities are threatening a community farm with imminent destruction in a local struggle between social and environmental values and individual property rights.
Last month, a representative from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department placed an eviction notice on the gate of the approximately 14-acre South Central Farm in Los Angeles, presumed to be the largest urban community garden in the United States. While the last thread of their legal case lingers in court, keeping eviction at bay, farmer-organizers and their supporters are engaged in round-the-clock political organizing to save the farm’s 300-plus survival gardens from replacement by a private warehouse.

No Missing Pieces

The tradition of living in community has deep roots in New Hampshire. Early pioneers banded together out of pure necessity. The governmental system is heavily weighted toward the local level, encouraging community involvement. And throughout our history, communities have formed around religious, political or social beliefs, common interests or the simple desire to gather with like-minded people.

In recent decades, community life has been in decline. But even today, you can find groups who are joining together in some kind of community.

Advocates want Dickson well hearing cancelled

Environmental justice advocates are requesting that a hearing in Dickson County on well regulations set for next week be cancelled.

The Tennessee Coalition for Environmental Justice has written a letter to state and county officials that also says clean up is needed of toxic chemicals that seeped from an old landfill.

“The landfill owner – Dickson County – has not satisfied state law to prevent future spread of the groundwater pollution,” said Harold Bell, president of the Dickson County NAACP.

Flames of Dissent Part V: The Ashes

More than a decade ago, a 21-year-old Lacey Phillabaum danced barefoot in a blue sundress on the downtown Federal Building lawn. A recent UO graduate, eco-radical writer and defender of the old-growth trees at Warner Creek, she jumped with other activists to the live lyrics of Casey Neil’s “Dancing on the Ruins of Multinational Corporations.” Nine and a half years ago, an emboldened Phillabaum watched a truck roll within arm’s length of a fellow activist during a forest defense protest on a highway near Detroit, Ore. Less than a month later, she and other Earth First! Journal editors defiantly perched in doomed downtown Eugene trees until police pepper-sprayed them down.

Net Neutrality/Data in New Congress? Don’t Hold Yer Breath

What’s in store for Net neutrality, data security and other hot button Web issues now that the Dems are running Congress? InternetNews has a story that provides a bit of an indication, though at this point we can’t be sure how things will shake out.

The story implies admonishment of the Republican-led Congress for not passing “legislation involving network neutrality, data privacy, telecom reform, data security, electronic surveillance or data-breach disclosure requirements,” nor funding research along these lines.

Where Will Blacks Find Justice? - The Civil Rights Movement is Dead and So is the Democratic Party

The first civil and human rights movement by and for Black people started during the Civil War and the period of Black Reconstruction that followed. It was a time of radical hopes for many freed slaves. But it was also a time of betrayal. Then President Andrew Johnson and the non-radical Republicans, in collusion with the Democratic Party, the party of slavery, sold out the early post-war promises for full equality and “40 acres and a mule”. Instead, the promise of equality was soon replaced by the restoration of the property rights of the former slave owners in the South.

Homeowner free speech battle heads to court

The New Jersey Supreme Court will hear arguments in January over whether homeowners surrender some of their rights when they move into developments governed by homeowners associations.

Dissident residents of Twin Rivers, a 10,000-resident strong complex in East Windsor, claim they have the right to put up political signs and hold political rallies in the development’s common room or print whatever they please in the association’s newsletter.

Resource warfare intensifies across “Grand Chessboard” and Horn of Africa

With the world now one full year off the Peak Oil and Gas cliff (according to work of geologists such as Kenneth Deffeyes), it is no surprise to see geostrategic tensions superheating quickly in several key oil and gas regions, as the world’s superpowers and multinational energy giants (supported by their nation’s militaries and intelligence agencies) intensify their combat over remaining energy supplies.

Housing slump hits home

When Tim Schieber bought a luxury town home a year ago without first selling his house, he didn’t think it would be hard to find a buyer for the Bucks County stone farmhouse where he and his wife raised five children over 21 years.

But it would take 15 months, a $190,000 price cut, $16,000 worth of remodeling and a new real estate agent before the Schiebers were able to sell their 3,600-square-foot home near Doylestown.

“The days when you put a house on the market and it sells (right away) — those days are gone,” said the 51-year-old business owner. “We just sat back and it got really tough.”

Posted by stan in News