Being green IS an American value... we've just forgotten.

Copied and edited from an ageist rant... less most of the ageism, plus some technical points and clarifications. Blame Russell.

Back then, in the 1950's and 60's in America, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled; without being crushed, melted, and reformed, which costs more than washing.

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. A lot of that clothing got made. Things got fixed, and you could fix them because they were made to be fixed.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. We valued our appliances, tools, and cars and we took good care of them... and they lasted.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

- The VW Bug, best selling car of /all time/ was massively popular then and got better than 30 miles per gallon, 36mpg was the stated value!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle

- The Model A ford (and there were a lot of them still on the road in 1950) got 25 to 30 miles per gallon. Of course, it was a death trap, and had a top speed (if you were crazy) of 65 mph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_A_(1927%E2%80%931931)#Features

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. err... actually, it turns out that a high mpg car is probably greener than mass transit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#US_Passenger_transportation

Even a Camry (rated at 28mpg) gets very close to beating the bus on average. Rail is about twice as efficient as a car, IF the train happens to go where you need it. But still, Bikes beat everything but walking, and keep you in shape... if the cars don't kill you.

http://www.pietzo.com/storage/downloads/Pietzo_LCAwhitepaper.pdf

Locally grown food was the rule rather than the exception. In most metropolitan areas, the grocery van (and the milk, and bread and everything else) came to your house once or twice a week, serving everyone in the neighborhood in ONE trip, instead of each person driving to a different store at different times.

http://antiqueshoppefl.com/articles/Jan11/milkcans0111.pdf

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

MIT Professor Walter Lewin (a /rock star/ of physics lectures) says that the energy the average American consumes today "... is the equivalent of having 100 slaves working for me like dogs 12 hours a day"

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-1999/video-lectures/lecture-14/

We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Your clothes dryer puts about 4.4 pounds of carbon into the air /every single load/.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_dryer#Environmental_impact

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper#Debate There are pluses and minus either way, but in a multi-child family, with a diaper washing service, cloth diapers do use less energy, if more water.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. Kids read comics and books and they played outside. Remember outside kids? It's that thing that goes by the windows of your car. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

Ok, look... I'm not saying we should go back to the 1950's in every way. We've made a lot of progress since then: Women are treated a LITTLE better... and now have the opportunity to work all day and THEN "make" dinner and "care" for the kids and husband. Safety is much improved; these days you can be a complete idiot and yet survive. Corporations are well regulated which prevents pollution and economic collapse. And I do think life is more open now, more connected and more examined. Our technology is worlds ahead of what it was; the intertubes give us access to information we don't need almost as fast as we ignore it.

But we tossed the baby out with the bath water. Frugality, and with it sustainability, went into the ditch. We got lazy, fat, and stupid. Looking back at what was /right/ in the 1950's might do us some good today.

http://www.pathtofreedom.com

Personal Freedom

If freedom is freedom of choice, then we are more free in a huge mega super market on the aisle with hundreds of different types of cereal, or tampons, or whatever.

If freedom is freedom of time to our selves, then we are more free in Trader Joes or the corner 7-eleven with one type of toilet paper and one type of cat litter.

Your freedom to swing your arm stops where my nose begins but my freedom to kill you depends on my countries leaders deciding what evil you are up to, and our incompetence at finding any better way of stopping you from doing harm to us and ours. The lines are not always clear, but they are crystalline in a time of action, following orders, executing the protocol, performing the function we have practiced for again and again. Persons defending personal freedom.

When I joined the Navy, my father asked me how I could give up my freedom. I said I was happy to give up my freedom to go hungry, to be without medical care, and my freedom to find a way to support my fiancé… which I had not found any way to do before I talked to a recruiter. She was free to leave me after I joined.

When I was in the Navy, I knew when I was free (on leave) and when I was not (on duty) and I could manage both; enjoy either. Now, as a “bread winner” I am never free of the drive to earn more, and guilt follows every moment away from my pursuit of the dollar. Abuse victims find freedom from the abuse in their minds, but there is no freedom from our own tyranny.

It’s been said that a King has more freedom than a slave and then it’s been said that a slave has more freedom than a king.

It’s a silly little word, with no apparent meaning. And yet I’ve fought for it, without understanding; and comprehend it less with each passing day. It eludes me as I age. Will I eventually loose my freedom to live? Or find freedom some day in death?

Am I free to stop thinking about this non-sense and get back to work?

The Non-permanence of Arrangements

http://xkcd.com/659/

Live it while you got it! Be ready to let it go.

Danny boy

"Danny Boy" is one of the most hauntingly beautiful songs ever written. If you've heard it, you were moved. You’ve probably heard it sung by a women or a man with an Irish lilt, and a voice so lovely that everything around just... stops. The sound is stunning, but I wonder if you’ve really heard the words.

The melody is Irish, but the words were written, not by an Irishman, but by an English lawyer and writer, Frederick Edward Weatherly in 1910, just after the death of his father. Mr. Weatherly had no roots in Irish music, the original version of “Danny Boy” was actually set to a completely different tune. His sister, Margaret, from America, heard "A Londonderry Air" from Irish immigrants and sent it to Weatherly who found that it fit the words of "Danny Boy" with minor adjustment. The current version of the song was published in 1913, the year before the start of World War One.

It has been said that the song was about Irish youth being marched off by the pipers to fight the Brits, or perhaps immigrating to the new world. But the bagpipes are played by many people in England (Irish, Scottish, and English alike) at important events; Weatherly heard them at his father’s funeral; he later said "there is nothing of the rebel song in it, and no note of bloodshed". There is no hint in the words of Danny being in danger.

Where is Danny going then? What takes our children from us? Not race, not wars, not resettlement, not anything we can hope to avoid; but instead the hopeless end, age, the passing of time, and the cycle of life. At some point the children must go on without us, as we have gone on without our own dear mothers and fathers:



Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so
And when ye come, and all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
Ye'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an Ave' there for me
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me
And all my grave shall warmer, sweeter be
For you shall bend and tell me that you love me
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me

Best advice I've heard in a long time...

If you hear that the world is ending and the Messiah has arrived, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

What stops population growth?

What stops population growth? from Gapminder Foundation on Vimeo.

Silly 8rs, you need 2/3rds to revise.

Thanks to Blanca for sending me this news from the ACLU:

In an order issued Wednesday, the California Supreme Court agreed to hear the legal challenges to Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that would end marriage for same-sex couples in California. It passed narrowly on November 4th.

On November 5th, the ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of Proposition 8 in the California Supreme Court on behalf of six couples and Equality California. The City of San Francisco, joined by the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, and Santa Clara County, filed a similar challenge, as did a private attorney in Los Angeles.

The lawsuits allege that, on its face, Proposition 8 is an improper revision rather than an amendment of the California Constitution because, in its very title -- which was "Eliminates the right to marry for same-sex couples" -- the initiative eliminated an existing right only for a targeted minority.

If permitted to stand, Proposition 8 would be the first time an initiative has successfully been used to change the California Constitution to take away an existing right only for a particular group. Such a change would defeat the very purpose of a constitution and fundamentally alter the role of the courts in protecting minority rights. According to the California Constitution, such a serious revision of the state constitution cannot be enacted through a simple majority vote but must first be approved by two-thirds of the legislature.

Ok, my "Yes on 8" neighbors, if you are going to change the law, learn how the law can and can not be legally changed. In the end, the will of the people will be done, but the people of today must follow the rules set down by our founders. If you really want to descriminate against a minority, do it legally.

Lets see, 2 divided by 3 is 0.666... OMG: It's the work of the devil!

choices and motivation reduce happiness.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
This talk is based on clinical research which pretty clearly shows the following (summerized in my own words):

• Choice opens the door for doubt regarding the choices you make
  
• Being highly motivated to make the best possible choices and reach the highest possible levels of attainment increases the chances that you will take risks and make sacrifices that will decrease your happiness.
  
• In a few months or a year, at most, you will be just as happy as you were before, no matter what actually happens to you.