Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
tipping point
i often feel that symbolic actions, non-violent civil disobedience and “peaceful” protesting leave a lot to be desired in terms of effect. this is not to say i don’t believe in a diversity of tactics, but it’s always a question of which tactic fits a given situation and whether the work put into organizing anything will have at least ripple out to some greater movement.
but – in the case of cindy sheehan – i can’t imagine a more powerful statement and i can see in her actions the seed of something that could have a powerful effect on the amercian psyche when it comes to the war.
this has gotten little press in canada because we are already so smugly anti-war up here – so if you haven’t heard of cindy, it’s not much of a surprise – though she is getting a lot of press attention in the states right now. to recap: cindy sheehan is the mother of casey sheehan, a 24-year old soldier who was killed last year in iraq. cindy believes that she has the right to speak to george bush, the man who consigned her son to death when he re-engaged the us military in iraq in 2003, and she is outraged by his refusal to meet with her and other grieving mothers who have fast come to the conclusion that the war in iraq certainly isn’t worth the price that so many families are having to pay. to that end, she has been waiting on the road outside of george bush’s texas ranch for the past several days. he continues to refuse to meet with her. (there is an excellent blog-post on the whole affair at the martian anthropologist which worth a read)
more and more women are going to join cindy there, outside the ranch, and the president’s people are threatening to have her arrested as a threat to national security. how about that twist in the plot of the new america? who suspected that grieving mothers could become terrorists with a few deftly placed media lines, and thus swept off the road and into the cells?
cindy, alone, has been a powerful presence in the us media in the past several days. she may or may not be arrested for essentially being a witness to war crimes. but no matter what happens in her individual case, the power of her actiongrowing is palpable. can you imagine if more grieving mothers started to turn up? what if grieving wives and children (and husbands, and fathers too) likewise turned up at the ranch in these last few weeks of bush’s summer holidays? would people shake their heads at the president? would they demand more? would it help to further undermine public support in the bloody mess that was stirred up when the sights were set over a decade ago?
the cynic in me says – no – cindy sheehan will fade away in the media once a shinier story is found by fickle journalists and the public will go back to their regularly scheduled programming…. but there is always a small part of me that hopes this small symbolic action will be the tipping point – the point of no return for the pro-war policies of the american politicians (from both parties) – the point at which the american people realize their dependence on foreign oil is a dependence on misery and death, not only of the people who live in the desert, but of their own as well. the point at which the people demand more of themselves, of their country, of their leaders. the point at which the troops are brought home.
is cindy the tipping point? or do we still have a much longer distance to go?
prisoner justice day
it’s prisoner justice day today – so if you know someone inside the prison system make sure to let them know you are thinking about them and say a prayer for their safety inside the machine.
facts about ocean phosphorescence
taken from – http://mips.stanford.edu/public/abstracts/hastings.pdf
“Ocean “phosphorescence”, commonly seen at night when the water is disturbed, is largely due to the dinoflagellates; they occur ubiquitously in the oceans as planktonic forms, responding to mechanical stimulation when the water is disturbed by emitting brief bright light. Light emission may be seen in the wake of a large ship for some 20 miles. About 20% of marine species are bioluminescent and many are photosynthetic. “ Red tides” are transient blooms of individual dinoflagellate species. Phosphorescent bays (e.g., in Puerto Rico, Jamaica) are persistent blooms of this type.
Since dinoflagellates are stimulated to emit light when predators (e.g., crustaceans) are active, predators on the crustaceans might thereby be alerted to feed on crustaceans, resulting in a reduced predation on dinoflagellates generally. Predation on dinoflagellates may also be impeded more directly; the flash could startle or divert a predator, allowing that cell to escape predation. The response time to stimulation (msec) is certainly fast enough to have this effect.”
because a bunch of people have asked me questions about phosphoresence since i wrote about it and i really didn’t know much (so i researched it on the internet of course). i think this basically means that if there is a red tide in the area, you have a good chance of seeing phosphorescent micro-organisms since they are the same thing. red tides are thought to be on the increase due to climate change and human activity in lots of places so it seems as though these would be on the increase (and of course you do know that red tides mean – don’t eat the shellfish right)?
some notes about today
petroglyph of a flower in bella coola – ancient rock art for which there is no local mythology.
I…..
was super-motivated this morning – managed to track down a problem and talk to some people about it (the problem being one unit is using up 80% of the space on our internet server and we need to work something out with them vis a vis data storage needs), answered a bunch of emails that came in over the weekend, worked on a couple other small things….. and then it just fizzled out sometime after lunch… i hate it when that happens. emailed the guy who i was exchanging flirts with on the weekend and mentioned i wouldn’t mind hanging out again sometime. i keep wondering if he will respond or not. am terrible at this whole getting-to-know people thing. it’s much easier just to go to bed with someone and sort the rest of it out later though i recognize that’s not the most adult thing to do either. had to apply today to re-acquire my firearms possession & acquisition licence as i seem to have misplaced it in my move and not having the cert makes the fact i took the courses two and half years ago moot since i can’t prove it without. am often shocked at the number of people who can’t just email a government agent for basic information without also swearing profusely and/or insulting the person behind the machine. do you really think i will answer you faster because you are an asshole? does it make you feel better? am similarly shocked that someone in another unit thought it was okay to upload 20+ gigs of sattellite data onto our internet server without checking in with me – the webmaster – first…. as though we somehow have an unlimited storage capacity just waiting for giant databases to be fit into. have been thinking about learning how to fish lately, and also about writing a cookbook (again) centered around local wild foods. couldn’t fit all of these thoughts into a coherent blog-post which is why you are getting bullet-point fragments rather than lovely prose.
recipe: black salal berry jam
thought i would share this wild berry recipe here for those who are interested in partaking of the season.
1) it’s august. go swimming for the afternoon somewhere the waters run crystal clear through the forest. with friends, or alone, it doesn’t really matter – but make sure you give yourself plenty of time to sun on the rocks afterwards. once you have baked the clean water into your skin and are ready to head back out on the trail, stop for a few minutes to pick 2 or three cups of salal berries and put them in a small container (with stems, this will fill up a nalgene bottle). eat a few to remind yourself that contrary to popular opinion, these fruits aren’t poisonous and actually quite subtle and tasty. when you get home, throw open the doors and air out the house while you rinse and sort the berries.
2) find a blackberry patch not to far away from where you live. preferably one that is not too close to a highway, train track or busy road as there is a high-likelihood these plants will have been sprayed with poisons. be careful of the thorns while you pick 3-4 cups of these tempting beauties and spirit them back to your home. as above, rinse the berries and sort out any stems and other little bits of wild nature that have hitchhiked in the berry bowl.
3) go next door to your neighbour’s house. knock on the door and introduce yourself since you are new to the neighbourhood and this is as good a time to meet people as any. ask if you can have 2 of the small green apples growing on their tree. tart green apples make a great natural source of pectin (as do salal berries). explain this to your new acquaintances and promise them a jar of jam in trade if this experiment in wild-jam making works out.
4) wait until the house is a bit cool, or open up the doors as making jam can get warm. get the boiling water canner ready and dig out the canning jars ready to go from last year’s jam-making. prepare the jars by bathing them in the boiling water for 10 minutes and the seals for 5 minutes. while you are doing this, crush one layer of berries at a time in a saucepan with a potato masher or like-device. once you have a nice jammish consistency going, turn the heat on to medium and add the apples (cut up into little pieces). cook until everything boils and the apples get mushy. add sugar to taste and 1/2 a cup to 1 cup of water. don’t add too much sugar as it will drown out the subtle tastes of the berries and they have enough natural sugar to preserve without a ton of additional sugars. boil some more until the jam gets stiff (if you are nervous about the jam not setting – if it appears a bit too thin – add a bit of pectin but you probably don’t need it).
5) once the jam is ready and cooked through (and the right amount of sweet or tart) pour it into the prepared jars. this recipe fills about 5 250-ml jars. bathe them in the boiling water canner with the lids on tight for another 10 minutes and then pull them out to cool for a half a day or so.
6) once you have determined the jam to be the goodness it is, commence giving a jar to your neighbours and to the friend(s) who helped you pick the berries. you should be left with a couple of jars for yourself to go in the winter-larder as well as a small dish of jam for using right now. later, when there are no berries left on the bushes, you will be glad for this small taste of summer wild.
Red Cedar 