How the E.P.A. Doesn't Even Deserve Its Title Anymore

VS.!


Do you have a preference?

Sliding into home base as it is, the Bush administration has decided to give a few final plumps to its various friends in energy-resource (and anti-environmental) industry. In this case they're pushing through the de-regulation of stream and water-resource protection, the one that keeps those streams and wetlands that still exist in the Appalachian region from turning into slurries. While the E.P.A. will technically have to sign off on this "revision", they already turned a blind eye to an earlier tweak that removed regulations for dumping waste directly into the flow of streams and rivers. The repeal of the buffer-zone will allow companies to contaminate not only the water sources themselves but the space all around the water source, enabling them to dig access roads and tracks right down to the water, completely destroying not only the mountains but the ecosystems in the valleys as well.

Now, I'm not terribly skilled at deconstructing legal documents, even super-reductive ones such as this fact sheet detailing information on the Stream Buffer Zone rule, but it seems to me that the language at the bottom of page two is a bit faint-hearted (so basically people shouldn't disturb the wildlife, but dumping mining waste is different so that's...okay? I'm confused) and does not actually speak to the heading of the section WHATSOEVER (header being: How is OSM proposing to change SBZ). And without any concrete answer, what's the point of the fact sheet? And in re: the very last statement: I don't want to see anything about "explanations of why that alternative is not possible". That's the loophole, and it's not even a subtle one. They must really think we're all idiots, and maybe we are. Industry, and the corrupt governmental offices it panders to, will just keep getting away with this until we say something.

Coal River Mountain Watch has the talking points. They're better at this than I.

I Love Mountains has the petition. I strongly encourage everyone to visit and sign.

And finally, Hillbilly Savants are everything I want to be. Only they don't have the shoes like I do. And that's your yearly free-pass on redneck and hillbilly jokes right there, except that I still have all my teeth.

The ultimate in reusing, reducing and recycling

Shopper's dress, veggie produce on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I really really love projects like this. Sometimes I think if I had more time on my hands (or used that time with which I procrastinate for things more useful) I could come up with stuff like this. As it stands, I'm just glad I've done so well taking my canvas bags to the grocery store as often as I have lately. Even if they're not trendy and sweet like the one I sent to The Dirty Hippie for her birthday. I admit: I'm kind of angling for one of them.

haiku (why not?)

all snow is
is a luxury.
why not rain?

greenKarat-Ecologically Responsible Jewelry-Search Output

Okay, well, who knows how real this is.

And, faithful reader(s?) I want you to know that marriage is not really a viable or even desirable option at this stage in my life. However, if and when it DOES become that kind of option, I will certainly be looking into this place. I need to check their credentials because seriously, an ad on the header of my Gmail account? Yeah, you know PublishAmerica advertises there too. But still. Did you see the pebble one? I thought it was gorgeous.

"Water, Water, Everywhere/And Not a Drop To Drink"

(by way of preamble, I'd like to point out that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was so much cooler as a young man, when he was smoking opium and writing The Rime of the Ancient Mariner than when he got older and stodgy)

Please read this article from the New York Times: The Future is Drying Up. When I first heard about global warming, this was my initial fear. Later people began to freak about about the sea levels rising and in the face of Katrina and post-Katrina traumas that fear has certainly made itself precedent to this one. But the threat of losing our water supplies has much more frightening, long-term ramifications. I like the angles the article illuminates; it offers a refreshingly straightforward and scare-you-straight perspective, rather than that TIME article from a few weeks ago in which the author discussed, rather cavalierly, the potential benefits of completely losing our polar ice caps (New Shipping Routes! Access to Underwater Oil Reserves!...who cares about polar bears drowning and Manhattan flooding?).

So do me a favor and read this, and restore my faith in humanity. I was already dooming us all to death in a few hundred years, even in the face of all the grace of Walden Pond. I could use a smile or two.

"ohhh, Honey Honey"

You know why it's kind of fascinating that this guy had 8 feet of honeycomb in his walls?

Because that might be one of the last places where exists a hive that big (an hive? I dunno). I wonder if there would be any good argument for researching why someone's house made a good honeybee hive, particularly in this rather frightening time of no more honeybees.

sustainable sustenance

One of the less interesting and mildly grumpy-making exercises following a trip (any trip, but especially a trip abroad) is assessing the financial damage.I'm going over not only my expenses from Ireland and England but also the expenses from the past six months in general, and I have begun to realize that food -- both eating out and groceries -- makes up the bulk of my expenses. We can all acknowledge that I love my vittles and that it often shows, and I think that I need to cut back on the amount I spend in feeding my frame.

What's fun about this is one of my most recent serious food investments. No, not the George Foreman "Insert Long and Silly Name Here" Grill, but the joint account that Captain Boyfriend and I have opened with Stillman's Community Sustained Agriculture farm ("Conscientiously Grown"). Every Saturday at noon, one or the other of us (it's worked out that he's here those weekends I'm not, and I'm not those weekends he is...get it?) will troop down to a parking lot in JP and pick up our organically grown box-o-veg for the week. This week was a box-o-:

• Lettuce
• a Tomato
• Swiss Chard
• Squash
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Arugula
• Stringbeans
• Cucumbers
• 4 ears of corn
• and...BLUEBERRIES!!

Just FYI, in case for whatever reason some people remember, I did used to hate blueberries as a child. I don't anymore. They rocked on the waffles this morning.

So we get all of this, with varying types of produce, every Saturday (approx. 4 times) for 4 months. $300/16 = $18.75. Considering we're splitting the cost but often eating the food together, I'm paying around $9 for that much fresh, healthy food. Something tells me that Community Sustained Agriculture might just be the way to go.

See? Yum. Blueberries. My blueberries.-------------->










<----------And my sugar snaps. Green with envy, aren't you?

Celebitchy vs. Madonna

Celebitchy just published a neat little note regarding the Live Earth concert. I liked what she had to say, and I like the direction the site is moving in in general. It's getting a good deal more intelligent, which makes me happy.

One thing that doesn't get covered all that often is the carbon-credit exchange, and how useless it is in terms of making corporations alter their approach. In ten years' time, it's not going to matter whether or not your corporation has purchased enough credits to pollute freely. Because corporations shouldn't be allowed to pollute at all. The mindset has to change.


I'm back at work, so I imagine these rants are going to get more boring and soapbox-y rather than being exciting details of my trip to Ireland. I'll still be listing some of the super cool fun stuff I did, but I'll be back to my usual tricks of being astoundingly boring on the political and social consciousness front.