R Blog

Does A Swallow Make a Summer?

Aristotle said, ”One swallow does not make a summer.” And I suppose he should know having been something of a zoologist as well as a philosopher. But up at our island place swallows have meant summer has arrived. For something like twelve years barn swallows, perhaps the same pair, have been using a mud nest affixed to a porch timber and hidden up under the porch roof. We enjoyed their antics, their complete indifference to humans and their amazing flying skills. Most of all we appreciated our mosquito free environment as a squadron of swallows scoured the airspace above our yard and along the beach denuding it of flying insects. (Photo taken by my brother). Swallows are way more efficient than an electric zapper. A swallow may not make a summer but he/she will make certain no flies buzz around the back door. Their aerobatic skills are amazing as they juke, dive and climb searching for prey. They can fly slowly too. At the local golf course swallows follow the golfers around making slow circles at knee level waiting for us to cause those tiny creatures who live in the grass to leap into the air. Then the swallows will helicopter in place and gorge themselves. (There’s a golf joke here about birdies but I can’t quite dredge it out). Barn swallows also disprove the notion that blue and brown don’t go well together. Barn swallows are quite striking. I love the little critters. Thus, it was disturbing to note that they were not occupying the family nest as we approached the beginning of summer. True, the nest had been invaded during the winter by some kinglets. They managed to tear out the front of it and perhaps desecrate it in ways that only  a swallow could understand. In twelve years at least one hundred barn swallows have been hatched in that nest and during the last month we had many barn swallows visitors fly into the porch. They swoop in, seemingly at full speed, pull a six G turn, put the air brakes on, view the nest and fly out again. None of them had the inclination to move in. They worked the back yard just like old times, jinking like fighter planes, but refused the nest. Then something quite interesting happened. A pair of violet-green swallows dumped a load of grass and feathers on the decking beneath the nest and began to make repairs. During part of the construction two barn swallows perched on some coat hooks across from the nest and watched the violet-greens work. We wondered if the violet-greens were some kind of subcontractor; if this was a form of out sourcing. But, in the end, the barn swallows just seemed interested, like someone watching the old family home being remodeled by a new owner. So, swallows are back in the form of these very striking birds who almost glow with iridescence. They have joined with the barn swallows to form a joint strike force which continues to terrorize winged insects. They have established complete air superiority and, fortunately for us, have made arrangements with bats to take over the debugging once they’ve bedded down for the night. And, to answer my question: in respectful disagreement with Aristotle, I believe that one swallow can make a summer.

Jesus Loves Me

Why doesn’t he show them some love?
(Film made by a 15 year old peace activist who lives in Alabama. Film has earned her death threats. Hope Jesus loves her and protects her). Warning: tough to watch.

Food Police

This past weekend I offered some guests a piece of Trader Joe’s chocolate. They asked if it was “Fair Trade.” It wasn’t and I scurried to the Trader Joe’s web site to research their position on chocolate. They didn’t seem to have a chocolate position. But  on another site I read about child slaves used to harvest the chocolate beans in Cote D'Ivoire and wished I had bought some more of the Fair Trade bars I had been nibbling. Food is such a personal and emotionally charged issue that one needs to be sensitive to other people’s views about what they eat. As a vegetarian for 32 years I’ve been on both sides of obnoxious. Meat eaters have given me a hard time and I’ve dished it out as well. Surprisingly, during my year as a 100% raw foodist, it was often my vegetarian friends who were most offended by my new food views. I suppose they felt they had given up enough. There is tremendous interest, however, in what we eat. There are powerful business forces concerned with protecting their turf and profitability and notable public interest groups lined up to attack. Food issues can be divided roughly into two categories: ethical and health. Ethical issues involve treatment of animals and farm workers; health issues focus on such things as additives in food, marketing unhealthy products to children, etc. A couple big dogs in the fight are   The Center for Consumer Freedom,  “a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.” They recently published the Ten Dumbest Food Cop Ideas
They battle against “the growing cabal of "food cops," health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals who think they know "what's best for you" are pushing against our basic freedoms.”
The Center For Consumer Freedom is mainly talking about The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) a self-described “food police” organization that has taken on olestra, palm oil and diet pop. CSPI has 900,000 subscribers to their newsletter which gives them lots of lobbying clout. Jacob Sullum in an article titled, The Anti-Pleasure Principle: The Food Police and the Pseudoscience of Self-denial  provides an interesting recap of the battles between Center For Science in the Public Interest and the Center for Consumer Freedom.
There are, of course, other organized food police forces and defenders of the food supply. It’s difficult to wind one’s way through the claims and counterclaims. I’m generally going to side with the food police as being more credible. The defenders of our food supply sell us tons of  sugar, create cannibal cows, and now genetically modified grains, fruits and vegetables. Maybe I’ll make a citizens arrest.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Or, Thank you For Buying Our Expensive Gasoline.

Watch the trailer to the interesting new documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?

It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?

Omnivore’s Dilemma for Cheapskates

This article is an excerpt from Michael Pollan's new book,  Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals with photos that don’t appear in the book. This selection is from the current Mother Jones Magazine.

Wiggling Through the Virtual Fence

Preznit Bush may have a fairly moderate view on immigration but he seems to be using the recent crisis as an opportunity to offer more profit to defense contractors by asking for bids to install a “virtual fence” along the border using "unmanned aerial vehicles, ground surveillance satellites and motion-detection equipment."
Today the Prez appeared in Yuma, Arizona for his photo op which featured him riding in a dune buggy along the US Mexican border where the virtual fence will be constructed. This immigration thing and virtual fence brings back a couple of memories. The first is that we’ve tried the virtual fence before. Around 1967 during the Vietnam War when the US Air Force, CIA and Special Forces weren’t able to stop the flow of material down the Ho Chi Mihn Trail, Secretary of Defense McNamara ordered a sort of virtual fence built. The monitoring center for this fence was at Nakhon Phenom Royal Thai Air Base where I was a guest along with a couple thousand other airmen. We watched as a huge clearing was made in the jungle and a multimillion dollar building was constructed. The fence wasn’t put into operation until after I left Thailand. But I heard about it. Essentially what we did was air drop a lot of ceramic motion detectors along the trail and intelligence personnel in the big building at NKP listened for sounds of trucks and men. When they heard them they called in air strikes. The fence cost a lot and didn’t work very well. It’s hard to even find out anything about it. Bush’s fence will probably work as poorly and determined folk like Alberto Gonzales' grandparents will no doubt figure out a way to wiggle through. 
My other recollection goes way back to the late forties when, as a very small boy, I would go to a labor camp with my grandfather early on Monday mornings to look for Manuel. Manuel was a Mexican guy in his late twenties who worked on my grandfather’s ranch in the San Juaquin Valley. He worked there for several years. Manuel was usually pretty hung over on Monday and it was always hard to coax him out of his cot in the squalid little shack where he lived a couple miles down the road. Manuel was a “wetback” and spent much of the year in California earning money which he sent or carried back to Mexico. He was a hard worker who usually worked nights as an irrigator (nights because there was less evaporation of the precious water). Manuel had a job because he was needed. This was at the end of the Bracero Program and Manuel might have been a legal visitor. It seems to me that if we are really serious about stopping illegal immigration  the quickest way to do it would be to prosecute people who employ these folks. If my grandfather had been in jeopardy of going to jail or paying a large fine I doubt that we would have been searching for Manuel on Monday mornings.

The Scourge That is Wal-Mart

Here’s some bad news reported in the  New York Times (registration required). Headline is “Wal-Mart Eyes Organic Foods” and outlines Wal-Mart Corp.’s organic food strategy. However, they try to sell it this is probably the worst news ever for the organic movement. Because logic tells us that Wal-Mart has no commitment to safe food. They simply recognize that organic is the fastest growing segment of the food industry. So look forward to “organic Frosted Mini-Wheats” and organics outsourced to China.

Iranian Prez Tries to Take Bush to Woodshed

Emboldened, I suppose, by Stephen Colbert’s in your face dressing down of President Bush, the Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadi-Najad decided to get into the act and take a bit of PR play away from Condoleeza’s crew. Money quote:
  If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead
spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating
different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to
the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production,
development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between
disputing states and distinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts were would
the world be today? Would not your government, and people be justifiably proud?
Would not your administration’s political and economic standing have been stronger?
And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the
American governments?
Entire text of the letter here http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12984.htm    in a translation by Le Monde. It's an interesting read.

Mac or PC?

Apple’s new generic ads are quite effective. If I didn’t already own a couple of Macs (and an iPod) I’d consider getting one. I liked “Restarting” and “Network” best. Click here to view.

Eat Local

May is Eat Local Month. Who knew? Read more about it here.