Eating lots of garlic can stop or shorten a cold.
Sometimes we hear the body whine, “oh no, I’m getting a cold.” At that very first moment, go eat a lot of garlic. The garlic will boost our immune system and stop the cold from settling in.
Garlic contains 30 antiviral and antibacterial compounds. Garlic is a bulb, like a daffodil, that lives underground. When the bulb gets nicked or cut by a bug, it creates strong chemicals that resists unhelpful bacteria so the plant survives. Also, living underground, the plant needs to have strong anti-decaying properties so it doesn’t rot.
Garlic has different properties cooked and raw. Garlic is more powerful when raw, but it’s harder on the stomach. It’s good to a few cloves raw, and then a few full heads of garlic cooked. (The individual garlic bulbs are called cloves and the clusters of a dozen or so cloves are called heads of garlic.) If I’m trying to block a on-setting cold, I’ll eat two cloves raw, and two or three heads of garlic cooked, which is about 30-40 cloves. If I’ve got an established cold, I’ll eat this regiment everyday.
Here are a few ways to prepare garlic.
When cold fighting, I like to eat one or two cloves chopped fine and mixed with a spoonful of raw honey.
The easiest way to eat a bunch of garlic is to chop it and put it atop toast in the toaster over. As the bread toasts, it usually cooks the garlic enough to take the acidic burn off the garlic. After toasting, add some olive oil, sea salt, and nutritional yeast atop the “garlic bread” sweetens the deal.
Another way to cook voluminous garlic is to bake it covered in olive oil. Peal a couple heads of garlic, put it in over-safe bowl, cover it in cheaper olive oil. Try 300 degrees for 20 or so minutes until spreadable by fork. Add sea salt. The leftover oil can be reused for cooking and bread dipping.
Another easy way to eat your medicine is cooking garlic amidst fried eggs. In the sauté pan, add some olive oil and the garlic. Crack the eggs into the pan atop the garlic. Throw in some sea salt and herbs. Flip it overeasy. Done.
The easiest way to peel garlic is to squash the garlic glove with the tail of a big knife until the peal loosens. Another method is chopping off the knobby root end of the garlic and then pealing back the paper. The knobby bottoms are worth the effort to cut off if they are big and unpalatable.
Interestingly, garlic doesn’t respond to human breeding attempts, and so the plant we see are similar to what our Italian caveman ancestors ate.
Garlic is easy to grow. Stick single cloves in the ground, six inches apart. Plant four-to-six weeks before the ground freezes hard in the fall. Garlic likes hay mulch, as the delicate roots benefit from lack of weed-pressure competition. Harvest in the beginning of August when the leaves go brown.
Throw out moldy garlic and be sure to cut away any imperfections from the white flesh of the garlic where decay has started. Any mold that grows on antibacterial garlic is strong and we certainly don’t want to eat it or even breathe it too much.
It’s probably best not to eat tons of garlic all the time, though. As a medicine, we want to let our body reset. Though our body does appreciate antiviral and antibacterial boosts when needed, in general we are trying to cultivate in the body a garden of good bacteria. Kombucha, probiotic supplements, yogurt, fermented foods all create digester allies that that help our body. When a lot of garlic hits the digester gullet of the large intestine, our natural microherd of intestinal flora will notice.
Some people say garlic makes us smell, but I think it just makes us smell of garlic, and I like that smell. Perhaps garlic’s odorous reputation has been amplified by Big Pharma to keep people buying cold medicine that works less well than garlic.
Garlic is a helpful ally in stopping a cold, but it should be used along with other practices too. Other helpful cold-defeating habits include Echinacea tea with raw honey, rest, water. Vitamin C in large quantities can help. I like the fizzy Emergence-C packets. And it’s good to keep warm, and ideally, raise the body’s heat up, as some viruses live at lower temperatures. A good hot shower,or a sauna, or even being bundled up beneath ten blankets, can hot box our bodies to encourage the baddies move out.
Good luck and be well!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
A Statewide Conversation on Building Vermont’s Food System
How can we build Vermont’s food system in the next ten years?
That’s the central topic of a well-organized conversation that’s happening in 8 places across Vermont in the next month.
The Farm to Plate Initiative and the Sustainable Agriculture Council are organizing local food summits. Farmers, food businesses and other stakeholders are being invited to say their piece. In the end, the state will spend some loot to make it happen. It sounds like government at it's best: trying to do good stuff by listening to the people doing the work.
An email from organizers says the events purpose is “to gather input from regional stakeholders as part of the Farm to Plate (F2P) strategic planning process whose goal is to enhance Vermont’s food system over the next 10 years. Not only will these events help in determining the contents of the strategic plan for Vermont’s farm and food sector, but it will also provide an opportunity for participants to learn more about what is happening in their region related to farms and food production.”
Distilled findings will be presented the VT legislature and the governor later this year. The eight events are designed to gather good ideas about where we want to go, what we need, what needs to increase, etc.
The conversation for southwestern Vermont is happening in Bennington, on Saturday Nov 14th, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, at 200 Pleasant St., from 5:30- 8:30. There will be a nice dinner, prepared with food from local farmers. Info is on the web at http://www.vsjf.org/sustainable_agriculture/farm2plate.shtml. Farm to Plate Local Food Summits contact person is Heather Pipino, 828-1121, heather@vsjf.org
Here’s what I think we need to improve Vermont’s food system over the long haul. We need better winter storage capacity. We could use a carbon tax on vegetables grown over a thousand miles away (regardless of whether this violates the WTO’s “rules.”) We should have inexpensive tractor rentals for young/poor farmers to use during the spring. We should increase the flow of local food to schools by having portions of the school lunch budget set aside for local food. We should have a food co-op in every town.
Some of these goals could overlap. Today, in early November in Vermont, I found an apple from Chile in my kitchen. This is prime Vermont apple season, but somehow, this carbon-drenched apple appeared, looking agreeably crunchy. It got me grumbling about the meagerness of our food system and the hidden carbon costs in the industrial food economy.
Let Vermont start by being self-sufficient in apples. There should be large apple storage sheds, with the pumped in CO2 for preservation, and every Vermont student should have access to handfuls of fresh, local apples everyday.
The development of a healthy food system will mean challenging one of the main philosophies of modern economics: free-market fundamentalism. Let’s drop the free market economy doctrinaire rhetoric that everything functions better when we slut ourselves out to big corporations, economies of scale and the profit motive. Not every system works best purely with the profit motive as the driving force.
Take those apples for example. Say we wanted to provide every Vermont student one Vermont apple everyday, all school year long. We could do that, with some math, some storage sheds and some public/private organization. Free-market fundamentalism would say, if Chilean apples were cheaper, buy those. Further, the government shouldn’t be involved in apple storage, because all things function better under the benevolent gaze of businessmen. This is nonsense. To save the planet, we need to do a million things that can’t be coaxed into existence by the profit motive.
Last night I read “Now or Never: Why we must act now to end climate change and create a sustainable future” by Tim Flannery. This excellent little book reminded me that the stakes are very, very high. Humanity may totally wreck our delicate terrerium. We really need to get it together, and create systems that meet our needs without blowing so much smoke into the sky. A thriving local food system puts less carbon into the air, and so it’s a key to the living future.
Let us build a local food system that brings together farmers, government people and eaters. Come to these discussions in your part of the state and daydream with us about the food system that saves the future.
That’s the central topic of a well-organized conversation that’s happening in 8 places across Vermont in the next month.
The Farm to Plate Initiative and the Sustainable Agriculture Council are organizing local food summits. Farmers, food businesses and other stakeholders are being invited to say their piece. In the end, the state will spend some loot to make it happen. It sounds like government at it's best: trying to do good stuff by listening to the people doing the work.
An email from organizers says the events purpose is “to gather input from regional stakeholders as part of the Farm to Plate (F2P) strategic planning process whose goal is to enhance Vermont’s food system over the next 10 years. Not only will these events help in determining the contents of the strategic plan for Vermont’s farm and food sector, but it will also provide an opportunity for participants to learn more about what is happening in their region related to farms and food production.”
Distilled findings will be presented the VT legislature and the governor later this year. The eight events are designed to gather good ideas about where we want to go, what we need, what needs to increase, etc.
The conversation for southwestern Vermont is happening in Bennington, on Saturday Nov 14th, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, at 200 Pleasant St., from 5:30- 8:30. There will be a nice dinner, prepared with food from local farmers. Info is on the web at http://www.vsjf.org/sustainable_agriculture/farm2plate.shtml. Farm to Plate Local Food Summits contact person is Heather Pipino, 828-1121, heather@vsjf.org
Here’s what I think we need to improve Vermont’s food system over the long haul. We need better winter storage capacity. We could use a carbon tax on vegetables grown over a thousand miles away (regardless of whether this violates the WTO’s “rules.”) We should have inexpensive tractor rentals for young/poor farmers to use during the spring. We should increase the flow of local food to schools by having portions of the school lunch budget set aside for local food. We should have a food co-op in every town.
Some of these goals could overlap. Today, in early November in Vermont, I found an apple from Chile in my kitchen. This is prime Vermont apple season, but somehow, this carbon-drenched apple appeared, looking agreeably crunchy. It got me grumbling about the meagerness of our food system and the hidden carbon costs in the industrial food economy.
Let Vermont start by being self-sufficient in apples. There should be large apple storage sheds, with the pumped in CO2 for preservation, and every Vermont student should have access to handfuls of fresh, local apples everyday.
The development of a healthy food system will mean challenging one of the main philosophies of modern economics: free-market fundamentalism. Let’s drop the free market economy doctrinaire rhetoric that everything functions better when we slut ourselves out to big corporations, economies of scale and the profit motive. Not every system works best purely with the profit motive as the driving force.
Take those apples for example. Say we wanted to provide every Vermont student one Vermont apple everyday, all school year long. We could do that, with some math, some storage sheds and some public/private organization. Free-market fundamentalism would say, if Chilean apples were cheaper, buy those. Further, the government shouldn’t be involved in apple storage, because all things function better under the benevolent gaze of businessmen. This is nonsense. To save the planet, we need to do a million things that can’t be coaxed into existence by the profit motive.
Last night I read “Now or Never: Why we must act now to end climate change and create a sustainable future” by Tim Flannery. This excellent little book reminded me that the stakes are very, very high. Humanity may totally wreck our delicate terrerium. We really need to get it together, and create systems that meet our needs without blowing so much smoke into the sky. A thriving local food system puts less carbon into the air, and so it’s a key to the living future.
Let us build a local food system that brings together farmers, government people and eaters. Come to these discussions in your part of the state and daydream with us about the food system that saves the future.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Getting the Generals to Leave Afghanistan to the Afghans
It is time to give Afghanistan back to the Afghan people and let them sort it out.
This means letting the Taliban “win”, an unpleasant prospect for a propagandized America, just like “losing” to the Viet Cong.
Afghanistan and Vietnam run so grimly parallel that we are fools not to remember our lessons.
Lesson #1: Don’t drag out a losing war indefinitely just because we can’t stomach the political pain of acknowledging a lost war.
Lesson #2: The native people support the insurgency because the Taliban/Viet Cong represent the people’s struggle for national independence, they speak the same language, and they are sick of Americans bombing their wedding parties.
Let us set down our doctrinaire US/Them propaganda and see who the Taliban are. The Taliban are the armed nationalist indigenous resistance movement against foreign occupation. They have set up a shadow government that issues passports, that calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Truck drivers who bring supplies to NATO bases must carry an IEA passport, and also pay a stiff tax to the Taliban. (See Patrick Cockburn’s excellent reporting at Counterpunch.org.) When Quadaffi spoke at the UN, he advocated for the Taliban’s right to set up the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban (aka the I.E.A.) have a website, where the war is sold from their point of view. It is an Orwellian experience to read celebratory comments about blowing up American conveys.
(Here’s a good place as a disclaimer as any: All things being equal, I’d like America to “win” in Afghanistan and establish equal rights for women, but since that’s not going to happen, screw it, let’s go.)
We can’t eliminate the social movement called the Taliban, because the Taliban are Afghans, largely comprised of Afghan’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, who are 42% of the population. The Taliban are Afghans acting as the legitimate indigenous nationalist military force resisting the foreign occupation. It is also clear, that the US has lost the opportunity to “win” in Afghanistan. What is winning? Defeating the Taliban? Oh really. Good luck with that. The Taliban are the Afghan people. Further, the Taliban movement is very resilient, surviving a crushing defeat in 2001, by just heading up into those endless, freezing mountains to regroup and eat their goat yogurt. Or maybe they ate Belgian chocolate airlifted in by the ISI paid for by wayward US tax dollars.
American money created the Taliban when they were America’s proxy army in fighting the Soviets partners. Once they were our allies, and perhaps they can be again. Surely, the Orwellian demonization of the Taliban can wear off after a few washes in the news cycle.
Americans live inside a bubble of propaganda that only extended living abroad can make clear. When one leaves the US, suddenly one decompresses from the Groupthink atmospheric pressure. The debate in the media about Afghanistan has been so strange. People pontificating like armchair 19th century English imperialists, twirling their handlebar mustaches while loaded on gin & tonics, talking about “our responsibility to the Afghan people” like it was our “white man’s burden.” Americans live behind enemy lines in a Thought War. PR firms catalog grumpy anti-war tracts like this one because they have Information War contracts to monitor and shape US public opinion.
The Afghan war is based on wrong foundational ideas: that America is the global cop, that America should be an occupying force, that America is the backbone of a global economic order that props up pliant crooks like Karzai. All this is wrong. Let us move towards a multi-polar world where the problems of the Age are settled by diplomacy and international organizations. Let’s start by handing Afghanistan to the UN.
Of course, the Taliban have many backward ideas about women, homosexuality, modernity, and music. I wouldn’t want to live next door to them. I’m just saying, let’s make peace with the Afghans and their armed advocates, the Taliban, and let Time and the awesomeness of Internet and pop music (and international aid and reparations) drag Afghanistan into the 21st century.
All this seems logical to me, a civilian who makes no money off the military, who wants peace, who generally likes Islam, and who is generally sympathetic with other countries that don’t want the US military stationed there.
Unfortunately, the Taliban are only half the problem in the Afghanistan war. The other half is the American military’s general.
The career militarists at the Pentagon want to extend the war in Afghanistan. The military-industrial complex wants to wring a few more years of billions out of the Afghan. Like Vietnam, a long war is a good paycheck. One military talking head said that winning would cost 5 billion a month for 10 years! I disagree that we can spend our way to victory there, though I agree that Halliburton would be willing to try.
Robert Drefeus has a smart article in the new Rolling Stone, where he writes of the difficulty Obama is having with the Generals.
Obama is smart, and living the world of Realpolitik, not in the Ideal world of the Leftist blogosphere, and so knows some history. Civilian presidents who resist the power of our military and our secret police (CIA) have often faced internal sabotage. Jimmy Carter was harpooned by the CIA spooks because they thought he was naïve for wanting to do the right thing, the Christian thing, even at the expense of short term loses in the field. Who knows about JFK, but the CIA certainly has been reluctant to release their files about Oswald.
So let’s have some patience with Obama, that in the first year, he hasn’t dismantled the entire apparatus of military conquest. We want Obama to go the distance and have a product 8 years, not throw a rod early and get coup de ta’d by the Raytheon heathens.
And of course, the good people in the military may honestly believe that we could still “win” in Afghanistan. The problem with military people can be caught in the proverb: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” However, there is no military solution to hammer the situation in Afghanistan with.
Politically, there will be a high cost if America is still in this new Vietnam in four years. The progressives are already getting grumble. We are starting to feel like we got played during the election, and a great disappointed watchfulness has set in. People voted for Obama as the anti-war candidate. Now, we’re still in all these wars! Recently I was at a gathering of progressives, and when people said Obama’s name, there was a new hesitancy has replaced the unbridled enthusiasm. Obama and the Democrats should know that extending the war in Afghanistan would hurt their chances in the long haul.
Most people don’t care about the nuances of world domination/geo-politics, they just want out. Here, the Americans and the Afghan people are in agreement: US out of Afghanistan.
And I’m with them. Out!
This means letting the Taliban “win”, an unpleasant prospect for a propagandized America, just like “losing” to the Viet Cong.
Afghanistan and Vietnam run so grimly parallel that we are fools not to remember our lessons.
Lesson #1: Don’t drag out a losing war indefinitely just because we can’t stomach the political pain of acknowledging a lost war.
Lesson #2: The native people support the insurgency because the Taliban/Viet Cong represent the people’s struggle for national independence, they speak the same language, and they are sick of Americans bombing their wedding parties.
Let us set down our doctrinaire US/Them propaganda and see who the Taliban are. The Taliban are the armed nationalist indigenous resistance movement against foreign occupation. They have set up a shadow government that issues passports, that calls itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Truck drivers who bring supplies to NATO bases must carry an IEA passport, and also pay a stiff tax to the Taliban. (See Patrick Cockburn’s excellent reporting at Counterpunch.org.) When Quadaffi spoke at the UN, he advocated for the Taliban’s right to set up the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban (aka the I.E.A.) have a website, where the war is sold from their point of view. It is an Orwellian experience to read celebratory comments about blowing up American conveys.
(Here’s a good place as a disclaimer as any: All things being equal, I’d like America to “win” in Afghanistan and establish equal rights for women, but since that’s not going to happen, screw it, let’s go.)
We can’t eliminate the social movement called the Taliban, because the Taliban are Afghans, largely comprised of Afghan’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, who are 42% of the population. The Taliban are Afghans acting as the legitimate indigenous nationalist military force resisting the foreign occupation. It is also clear, that the US has lost the opportunity to “win” in Afghanistan. What is winning? Defeating the Taliban? Oh really. Good luck with that. The Taliban are the Afghan people. Further, the Taliban movement is very resilient, surviving a crushing defeat in 2001, by just heading up into those endless, freezing mountains to regroup and eat their goat yogurt. Or maybe they ate Belgian chocolate airlifted in by the ISI paid for by wayward US tax dollars.
American money created the Taliban when they were America’s proxy army in fighting the Soviets partners. Once they were our allies, and perhaps they can be again. Surely, the Orwellian demonization of the Taliban can wear off after a few washes in the news cycle.
Americans live inside a bubble of propaganda that only extended living abroad can make clear. When one leaves the US, suddenly one decompresses from the Groupthink atmospheric pressure. The debate in the media about Afghanistan has been so strange. People pontificating like armchair 19th century English imperialists, twirling their handlebar mustaches while loaded on gin & tonics, talking about “our responsibility to the Afghan people” like it was our “white man’s burden.” Americans live behind enemy lines in a Thought War. PR firms catalog grumpy anti-war tracts like this one because they have Information War contracts to monitor and shape US public opinion.
The Afghan war is based on wrong foundational ideas: that America is the global cop, that America should be an occupying force, that America is the backbone of a global economic order that props up pliant crooks like Karzai. All this is wrong. Let us move towards a multi-polar world where the problems of the Age are settled by diplomacy and international organizations. Let’s start by handing Afghanistan to the UN.
Of course, the Taliban have many backward ideas about women, homosexuality, modernity, and music. I wouldn’t want to live next door to them. I’m just saying, let’s make peace with the Afghans and their armed advocates, the Taliban, and let Time and the awesomeness of Internet and pop music (and international aid and reparations) drag Afghanistan into the 21st century.
All this seems logical to me, a civilian who makes no money off the military, who wants peace, who generally likes Islam, and who is generally sympathetic with other countries that don’t want the US military stationed there.
Unfortunately, the Taliban are only half the problem in the Afghanistan war. The other half is the American military’s general.
The career militarists at the Pentagon want to extend the war in Afghanistan. The military-industrial complex wants to wring a few more years of billions out of the Afghan. Like Vietnam, a long war is a good paycheck. One military talking head said that winning would cost 5 billion a month for 10 years! I disagree that we can spend our way to victory there, though I agree that Halliburton would be willing to try.
Robert Drefeus has a smart article in the new Rolling Stone, where he writes of the difficulty Obama is having with the Generals.
Obama is smart, and living the world of Realpolitik, not in the Ideal world of the Leftist blogosphere, and so knows some history. Civilian presidents who resist the power of our military and our secret police (CIA) have often faced internal sabotage. Jimmy Carter was harpooned by the CIA spooks because they thought he was naïve for wanting to do the right thing, the Christian thing, even at the expense of short term loses in the field. Who knows about JFK, but the CIA certainly has been reluctant to release their files about Oswald.
So let’s have some patience with Obama, that in the first year, he hasn’t dismantled the entire apparatus of military conquest. We want Obama to go the distance and have a product 8 years, not throw a rod early and get coup de ta’d by the Raytheon heathens.
And of course, the good people in the military may honestly believe that we could still “win” in Afghanistan. The problem with military people can be caught in the proverb: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” However, there is no military solution to hammer the situation in Afghanistan with.
Politically, there will be a high cost if America is still in this new Vietnam in four years. The progressives are already getting grumble. We are starting to feel like we got played during the election, and a great disappointed watchfulness has set in. People voted for Obama as the anti-war candidate. Now, we’re still in all these wars! Recently I was at a gathering of progressives, and when people said Obama’s name, there was a new hesitancy has replaced the unbridled enthusiasm. Obama and the Democrats should know that extending the war in Afghanistan would hurt their chances in the long haul.
Most people don’t care about the nuances of world domination/geo-politics, they just want out. Here, the Americans and the Afghan people are in agreement: US out of Afghanistan.
And I’m with them. Out!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Learning to see Nature so we Awake
When we learn to look really closely at Nature, secret doors open to knowledge, biology, art, and mystery.
When our awareness steadies in focused observation, colors deepen, shapes define, strange relationships develop, and patterns emerge.
It takes bravery to receptively witness the beauty of the world. It takes a refined, disciplined, masocism to endure the pleasures of percieving the gorgeousness of our burning world.
We must willfully shake off our everyday daze and be voluntarily tazed by the miracles blooming and swooping all around.
A long, thorough, multi-seasonal contemplation of Nature in Her many forms brings ever deepening revelation.
Humans need these skills for appreciating Nature, so we’ll turn less Nature into parking lots, so we’ll be content with non-consumptive pleasures like looking at the subtle colors of sunset.
We take the right posture when we adopt a reverent appreciation for the great beauty that surrounds us in the Web of Life.
The skill of deep appreciation of Nature offers necessary skills that humans need in our effort to create planetary survival.
When we see Nature, when we learn to really open up to Nature’s beauty in her delicate and useful shapes/colors/forms, we are gifted with appreciation for the Lifeweb that supports us. And we need that gratitude for Life, in all her stunning complexity, because it strengthens our connection to the Earth that we need to work fiercely to protect.
When our awareness steadies in focused observation, colors deepen, shapes define, strange relationships develop, and patterns emerge.
It takes bravery to receptively witness the beauty of the world. It takes a refined, disciplined, masocism to endure the pleasures of percieving the gorgeousness of our burning world.
We must willfully shake off our everyday daze and be voluntarily tazed by the miracles blooming and swooping all around.
A long, thorough, multi-seasonal contemplation of Nature in Her many forms brings ever deepening revelation.
Humans need these skills for appreciating Nature, so we’ll turn less Nature into parking lots, so we’ll be content with non-consumptive pleasures like looking at the subtle colors of sunset.
We take the right posture when we adopt a reverent appreciation for the great beauty that surrounds us in the Web of Life.
The skill of deep appreciation of Nature offers necessary skills that humans need in our effort to create planetary survival.
When we see Nature, when we learn to really open up to Nature’s beauty in her delicate and useful shapes/colors/forms, we are gifted with appreciation for the Lifeweb that supports us. And we need that gratitude for Life, in all her stunning complexity, because it strengthens our connection to the Earth that we need to work fiercely to protect.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Some Gratitude for Teddy Kennedy
I was named for Teddy Kennedy and so this man has been in my awareness since I was very young. My legal name is Edward Talcott, nicknamed Teddy when I was growing up, (though I go by Theo today). I've spent a lifetime in quiet respect for this guy, and today I feel like offering up some thanksgiving for this good guy from this good family.
When one watches politics habitually, one needs loadstars or points of reference. Teddy Kennedy was like that, a dependable "long-distance runner for justice' as Cornell West would say, someone you could count on to be aligned to the Good.
I appreciated Teddy as somebody willing to slog along for Team Good, one of us in there during the long, ugly trench warfare of American Politics, a liberal icon throughout the Ice Age of Reagan and the Dark Ages of Bush.
Teddy Kennedy fought for health care and for the poor, even when he and his family had their own. He was not a member of the cold-hearted, classist, sociopathic, privileged elite. Instead, he engaged in a life-long struggle on behalf of a vision of America where everybody deserves a piece of the action and equal rights and access to the good life.
I heard that at one time in Washington, there was a conference about his brother Bobby, entitled "Politics: A Profession Not Without Honor", to help political people remember that high-minded values are accessible in the political sphere, and that politicians don't have to be scoundrels. True, the profession does encourage people who can lie. And this makes the people who can bear the ugliness and yet keep pointed towards the Good all the more essential. Because politics is important as a way to have very serious arguments about life and death issues like who will get health care and who will go bankrupt and have their lives ruined.
There are many kinds of lives that a young person could aspire to in this world. Teddy is a good role model of a life well spent, somebody who lived to be an old man, working for good causes for decades and decades, siding with the Good and relentlessly wading into the struggles of our times.
The harps and Angels are certainly welcoming in this ally of the Good even now, this hard-working warrior of the public sphere, who spent so much of his life advocating 'for the least of these' among us. Onward and upward, brother...
When one watches politics habitually, one needs loadstars or points of reference. Teddy Kennedy was like that, a dependable "long-distance runner for justice' as Cornell West would say, someone you could count on to be aligned to the Good.
I appreciated Teddy as somebody willing to slog along for Team Good, one of us in there during the long, ugly trench warfare of American Politics, a liberal icon throughout the Ice Age of Reagan and the Dark Ages of Bush.
Teddy Kennedy fought for health care and for the poor, even when he and his family had their own. He was not a member of the cold-hearted, classist, sociopathic, privileged elite. Instead, he engaged in a life-long struggle on behalf of a vision of America where everybody deserves a piece of the action and equal rights and access to the good life.
I heard that at one time in Washington, there was a conference about his brother Bobby, entitled "Politics: A Profession Not Without Honor", to help political people remember that high-minded values are accessible in the political sphere, and that politicians don't have to be scoundrels. True, the profession does encourage people who can lie. And this makes the people who can bear the ugliness and yet keep pointed towards the Good all the more essential. Because politics is important as a way to have very serious arguments about life and death issues like who will get health care and who will go bankrupt and have their lives ruined.
There are many kinds of lives that a young person could aspire to in this world. Teddy is a good role model of a life well spent, somebody who lived to be an old man, working for good causes for decades and decades, siding with the Good and relentlessly wading into the struggles of our times.
The harps and Angels are certainly welcoming in this ally of the Good even now, this hard-working warrior of the public sphere, who spent so much of his life advocating 'for the least of these' among us. Onward and upward, brother...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Recommendations for That Big Trip to Mother India
Trips to India are awesome. Anyone with the slightest inclination should go. Last winter I had another great great trip their, deeply spiritual, and I really encourage anyone with spiritual leanings to do it. This winter I'm going back because this winter is the Kumba Mela, the closest one to 2012! So maybe I'll see you in the rainbow camp in Hardiwar in March!
Here's something I wrote up on the details of going to India.
India is magic and wise. India is difficult and monstrous. India is the delta of history and the holder of humanity’s highest wisdom. Everyone should visit. Yoga and meditation students will totally benefit from the perspective gained by visiting where these practices originate from.
Here’s some tips for the trip.
It’s great, have fun, walkabout, it’s relatively safe and inexpensive.
Don’t get sick. It’s harder to have spiritual thoughts when one is crabby and ill in the hotel room. An aggressive, pro-active approach towards health is recommended. Eating right, get good sleep, do the yoga.
A healthy body is more resistant.
Don’t drink the water, unless it’s boiled and purified. Ask for no ice cubes, which are unpurified water. Suck it up and buy the bottled water. It took me three weeks to realize that was my blockage: I’d never bought plastic bottles of water and I had a thing against it.
I got some nasty skin-fungul infection about three weeks in. I bought medicine like a spendthrift hypocondriac. Eventually the disease went away (after I took a friend's advice and lathered myself head to toe with Prell Anti-lice shampoo and let it dry on me like a mudman!) I think it was my body getting inoculated to India’s compost pile. Then I was pretty healthy for two months. Then, just as I was approaching the ETD, I got a nasty food poisoning case, from a food stall at festival, that drove me onto the plane. India is a hard place to be sick. I have so much compassion for all the people living there without health care. Auroville had a dank health clinic offered free to local villagers.
During the trip, I took droppers of “colloidal silver”, basically super small pieces of silver, almost just the vibration and frequency of silver, which apparently has a purifying quality. Hence, silver was used for spoons. Hard to find, perhaps, but available at Auroville.
I traveled with food, vitamins and medicine. I ate a garlic clove or two a day to boost the immune system with garlic’s antiviral antibacterial properties.
Bring your favorite health care products. The organic movement hasn’t hit India.
I didn’t get the shots, because apparently all the diseases have resistent strains anyway, and I worry about the mercury-based thimeresol used in vaccines. That said, I had alot of those shots in my 20s.
India has an unbelievably excellent train system. One can get anywhere on these trains. I recommend getting the 2nd class AC births, a bit more pricey, but totally worth it. The steerage class is like the tightpack method on the slave ships: all night, no seat, people talking about you in Hindi. Very difficult, but also very human. AC2 gets you sheets, privacy, class insulation, no beggars. India is easy enough once you are settled in someplace, but can be pretty challenging on the move.
I quizzed several American yogi travelers deeply before I went.
The best peace of advice I got was this: Don’t get all worked up if the taxi guy is trying to get an extra ten cents out of you. Don’t let it ruin your day. You can bargain till your stress level is shot up and your adrenals are maxed out, and you’ll have saved 50 cents. Keep it in perspective. They may be overcharging you, but it’s still cheap. Due to the rigged economic system’s exchange rates, our 1 dollar is worth about $5 dollars. A great meal will be $2. So it’s cheap. The taxi driver will spend an hour of his life and you’ll give him $2.
With that said, traveling on a budget does require some skillful bargaining. Generally, try and knock off 1/3 of the proposition price.
Appear willing to walk away without the sale. Remember Indians would probably pay 1/4 what you pay. If you know a few words in the local language, the price drops, such as “too much” in Tamil.
Decide how much you’d be willing to pay. Go to the next guy in line.
Fix a price before you consume the service, or they ask their price.( ie whadda-I-owe-ya to the taxi driver at the destination)
If somebody is walking beside you trying to sell you something, I found that changing direction was a good way to shake them loose. I’d walk 10 steps in the wrong direction, and they’d get the hint.
India is a great place to practice being assertive. “No, we definitely said 60 rupees for the cab ride” and
”no, I definitely don’t want your peacock feather fan, however beautiful it is, because I don’t want to support the cruelty to those animals.” There are varying degrees of “no.” “No” with tone, urgency, anger, firmness. Part of the trick is deciding clearly in your own mind. If you may want the offered thing, the sellers can sense that. Saying the word “Jao!” with varying degrees of firmness is helpful. Jao means, I think “go you fool!” or “Beat it!” The combo of the native language and tone is pretty effective.
And sometimes the answer is Yes. “Why yes, Mr. Pushy cab driver, Thank you for your gumption to walk down to the railway station platform and for leading me to the awaiting chariot.”
The cabbies are so dishonest. I got lied to a thousand times. I was lied to more in India than I’ve ever been lied to. It seems like it’s just part of it. Like in Vindivan, buying a lifetimes supply of Nag Champa incense, $40 worth, the incense shop owner said the price he was offering me was the wholesale price, that he was only making a penny or two on each box. I thought, “Hhhmmmnnn, no wonder India is so poor, because they have such a poor understanding of capitalism, that stores are supposed to sell items for more-than-it-cost-them, or as we say, profit.”
The dishonesty is tiring, and it takes some skill to recognize it. Once in Delhi, this taxi driver son of a bitch took me to a travel agent across the street from the Delhi train station. There, I was told that no tickets were for sale today across the street, and I could only get rail tickets from them, at, surprise surprise, a very very “low.” Good scam, almost got $20US out of me, but I politely said, “well, I’ll just walk over an see, and then I’ll come back.” Shysters!
But once again, don’t let it ruin your day. They are real poor, an extra dollar makes they’re day a huge success, and they are happy, so why not be generous when one can.
The second great piece of advice my friend gave me was “It’s OK to spend a little extra and get a nice hotel room when you need it. Don’t feel you have to camp out with the hippies all the time.” For an extra two dollars a day you can often step it up significantly. Safer, cleaner, less riffraff. Insulation.
In Delhi, they ask for American style prices, $60 a night. That’s unusually high. Usually, a good hotel is 200-500 rupees, or 4 to 10$.
I recommend learning exchange rate functionally pretty early. Learn get a rough estimate, or travel with a little hand held calculator. 1=42. or easier 1=40. 100R equals 2.50$
The most I spent was 65$ a night at the super swank hotel at Osho’s Club Meditation in Poona. That place was a nice respite, interlude, intermission during my trip, a submersion in a clean uplifted world.
In summary, a nice hotel room is totally worth it.
In summary, have a great spiritual time. Live healthy and try not to get sick. Don’t sweat the 20 cent scam.
As far as places to visit, I really loved meeting the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Aquarian experiment happening at Auroville, near Pondicherry. So beautiful. His teachings were the most profound spiritual thing I learned in India.
Second, Bodhgaya, where Buddha got Enlightened, is extremely sacred, and the Buddhafields of saint energy vibrates super super high there.
Third, Rishikesh is a sweet, spiritual yoga town, way up in the hills, where the Beatles hung with the Maharishi.
Fourth, Osho’s Club Meditation, in Poona, is expensive and decadent, but spiritual and a nice break from the poverty. Probably not really necessary or wholesome, but interesting. Everynight they have ‘white robe”, where 1000 people dress in white in a giant pyramid temple and dance wildy to rock and roll, do some meditations, and listen to a recorded Osho talk. It’s like being in California-style cult for a little while.
Delhi had a few nice museums, and the Gandhi Samatri, his final footsteps museum ahd a cool gandhi museum.
I had difficulties with money a few times. The ATM card isn’t as helpful as one would like. In Thailand, an ATM machine stole my card on the first day! One wrong pin attempt and gone! Trying to get somebody to speak English over the phone. I had fifty bucks, and I was jetlagged on Casong road. Luckily a CD street vendor was cranking Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Fairytales and i sat down and meditated in front of a 7/11 and made it all better.
In short, I used Western Union. A little expensive, 50-80 dollars, but the money shows up right away, but then you’ve got to carry lots of loot on you, which is stressful. Maybe travellers checks would be good next time. I may try that next time.
I noticed a funny phenomenon. If I didn’t see the beggars, they didn’t see me. If I kept my focus tight, my eye gaze close, I was much less hassled while walking through crowds. Rupert Sheldrake has a book out explaining the phenomenon of the sense of being stared at. Anyway, it works partially as a cloak of invisibility.
Also, a total blank, non-engagement allows one to float past situations. If one start talking or looking or even saying no, one has upped the ante of the interaction.
At these ancient and wise spiritual sites, pray like you mean it, crank open to the spirit, and you’ll find well worn pathways. India is a spiritually advanced nation.
For cheap tickets, I got a great cheap tickets following my friends advice to fly to Thailand first and get an India ticket there.
I got a one-way to Bangcock for $620. From there I hopped a regional airways, maybe Air India, for $280. Flying back from Dehli to NYC was about $700. By contrast, one way NYC to Dehli was $1400. Thailand was pretty sweet too, and a good ‘get-yer-feet-wet’ before India.
Good luck and safe travels, soul brethren
Here's something I wrote up on the details of going to India.
India is magic and wise. India is difficult and monstrous. India is the delta of history and the holder of humanity’s highest wisdom. Everyone should visit. Yoga and meditation students will totally benefit from the perspective gained by visiting where these practices originate from.
Here’s some tips for the trip.
It’s great, have fun, walkabout, it’s relatively safe and inexpensive.
Don’t get sick. It’s harder to have spiritual thoughts when one is crabby and ill in the hotel room. An aggressive, pro-active approach towards health is recommended. Eating right, get good sleep, do the yoga.
A healthy body is more resistant.
Don’t drink the water, unless it’s boiled and purified. Ask for no ice cubes, which are unpurified water. Suck it up and buy the bottled water. It took me three weeks to realize that was my blockage: I’d never bought plastic bottles of water and I had a thing against it.
I got some nasty skin-fungul infection about three weeks in. I bought medicine like a spendthrift hypocondriac. Eventually the disease went away (after I took a friend's advice and lathered myself head to toe with Prell Anti-lice shampoo and let it dry on me like a mudman!) I think it was my body getting inoculated to India’s compost pile. Then I was pretty healthy for two months. Then, just as I was approaching the ETD, I got a nasty food poisoning case, from a food stall at festival, that drove me onto the plane. India is a hard place to be sick. I have so much compassion for all the people living there without health care. Auroville had a dank health clinic offered free to local villagers.
During the trip, I took droppers of “colloidal silver”, basically super small pieces of silver, almost just the vibration and frequency of silver, which apparently has a purifying quality. Hence, silver was used for spoons. Hard to find, perhaps, but available at Auroville.
I traveled with food, vitamins and medicine. I ate a garlic clove or two a day to boost the immune system with garlic’s antiviral antibacterial properties.
Bring your favorite health care products. The organic movement hasn’t hit India.
I didn’t get the shots, because apparently all the diseases have resistent strains anyway, and I worry about the mercury-based thimeresol used in vaccines. That said, I had alot of those shots in my 20s.
India has an unbelievably excellent train system. One can get anywhere on these trains. I recommend getting the 2nd class AC births, a bit more pricey, but totally worth it. The steerage class is like the tightpack method on the slave ships: all night, no seat, people talking about you in Hindi. Very difficult, but also very human. AC2 gets you sheets, privacy, class insulation, no beggars. India is easy enough once you are settled in someplace, but can be pretty challenging on the move.
I quizzed several American yogi travelers deeply before I went.
The best peace of advice I got was this: Don’t get all worked up if the taxi guy is trying to get an extra ten cents out of you. Don’t let it ruin your day. You can bargain till your stress level is shot up and your adrenals are maxed out, and you’ll have saved 50 cents. Keep it in perspective. They may be overcharging you, but it’s still cheap. Due to the rigged economic system’s exchange rates, our 1 dollar is worth about $5 dollars. A great meal will be $2. So it’s cheap. The taxi driver will spend an hour of his life and you’ll give him $2.
With that said, traveling on a budget does require some skillful bargaining. Generally, try and knock off 1/3 of the proposition price.
Appear willing to walk away without the sale. Remember Indians would probably pay 1/4 what you pay. If you know a few words in the local language, the price drops, such as “too much” in Tamil.
Decide how much you’d be willing to pay. Go to the next guy in line.
Fix a price before you consume the service, or they ask their price.( ie whadda-I-owe-ya to the taxi driver at the destination)
If somebody is walking beside you trying to sell you something, I found that changing direction was a good way to shake them loose. I’d walk 10 steps in the wrong direction, and they’d get the hint.
India is a great place to practice being assertive. “No, we definitely said 60 rupees for the cab ride” and
”no, I definitely don’t want your peacock feather fan, however beautiful it is, because I don’t want to support the cruelty to those animals.” There are varying degrees of “no.” “No” with tone, urgency, anger, firmness. Part of the trick is deciding clearly in your own mind. If you may want the offered thing, the sellers can sense that. Saying the word “Jao!” with varying degrees of firmness is helpful. Jao means, I think “go you fool!” or “Beat it!” The combo of the native language and tone is pretty effective.
And sometimes the answer is Yes. “Why yes, Mr. Pushy cab driver, Thank you for your gumption to walk down to the railway station platform and for leading me to the awaiting chariot.”
The cabbies are so dishonest. I got lied to a thousand times. I was lied to more in India than I’ve ever been lied to. It seems like it’s just part of it. Like in Vindivan, buying a lifetimes supply of Nag Champa incense, $40 worth, the incense shop owner said the price he was offering me was the wholesale price, that he was only making a penny or two on each box. I thought, “Hhhmmmnnn, no wonder India is so poor, because they have such a poor understanding of capitalism, that stores are supposed to sell items for more-than-it-cost-them, or as we say, profit.”
The dishonesty is tiring, and it takes some skill to recognize it. Once in Delhi, this taxi driver son of a bitch took me to a travel agent across the street from the Delhi train station. There, I was told that no tickets were for sale today across the street, and I could only get rail tickets from them, at, surprise surprise, a very very “low.” Good scam, almost got $20US out of me, but I politely said, “well, I’ll just walk over an see, and then I’ll come back.” Shysters!
But once again, don’t let it ruin your day. They are real poor, an extra dollar makes they’re day a huge success, and they are happy, so why not be generous when one can.
The second great piece of advice my friend gave me was “It’s OK to spend a little extra and get a nice hotel room when you need it. Don’t feel you have to camp out with the hippies all the time.” For an extra two dollars a day you can often step it up significantly. Safer, cleaner, less riffraff. Insulation.
In Delhi, they ask for American style prices, $60 a night. That’s unusually high. Usually, a good hotel is 200-500 rupees, or 4 to 10$.
I recommend learning exchange rate functionally pretty early. Learn get a rough estimate, or travel with a little hand held calculator. 1=42. or easier 1=40. 100R equals 2.50$
The most I spent was 65$ a night at the super swank hotel at Osho’s Club Meditation in Poona. That place was a nice respite, interlude, intermission during my trip, a submersion in a clean uplifted world.
In summary, a nice hotel room is totally worth it.
In summary, have a great spiritual time. Live healthy and try not to get sick. Don’t sweat the 20 cent scam.
As far as places to visit, I really loved meeting the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Aquarian experiment happening at Auroville, near Pondicherry. So beautiful. His teachings were the most profound spiritual thing I learned in India.
Second, Bodhgaya, where Buddha got Enlightened, is extremely sacred, and the Buddhafields of saint energy vibrates super super high there.
Third, Rishikesh is a sweet, spiritual yoga town, way up in the hills, where the Beatles hung with the Maharishi.
Fourth, Osho’s Club Meditation, in Poona, is expensive and decadent, but spiritual and a nice break from the poverty. Probably not really necessary or wholesome, but interesting. Everynight they have ‘white robe”, where 1000 people dress in white in a giant pyramid temple and dance wildy to rock and roll, do some meditations, and listen to a recorded Osho talk. It’s like being in California-style cult for a little while.
Delhi had a few nice museums, and the Gandhi Samatri, his final footsteps museum ahd a cool gandhi museum.
I had difficulties with money a few times. The ATM card isn’t as helpful as one would like. In Thailand, an ATM machine stole my card on the first day! One wrong pin attempt and gone! Trying to get somebody to speak English over the phone. I had fifty bucks, and I was jetlagged on Casong road. Luckily a CD street vendor was cranking Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Fairytales and i sat down and meditated in front of a 7/11 and made it all better.
In short, I used Western Union. A little expensive, 50-80 dollars, but the money shows up right away, but then you’ve got to carry lots of loot on you, which is stressful. Maybe travellers checks would be good next time. I may try that next time.
I noticed a funny phenomenon. If I didn’t see the beggars, they didn’t see me. If I kept my focus tight, my eye gaze close, I was much less hassled while walking through crowds. Rupert Sheldrake has a book out explaining the phenomenon of the sense of being stared at. Anyway, it works partially as a cloak of invisibility.
Also, a total blank, non-engagement allows one to float past situations. If one start talking or looking or even saying no, one has upped the ante of the interaction.
At these ancient and wise spiritual sites, pray like you mean it, crank open to the spirit, and you’ll find well worn pathways. India is a spiritually advanced nation.
For cheap tickets, I got a great cheap tickets following my friends advice to fly to Thailand first and get an India ticket there.
I got a one-way to Bangcock for $620. From there I hopped a regional airways, maybe Air India, for $280. Flying back from Dehli to NYC was about $700. By contrast, one way NYC to Dehli was $1400. Thailand was pretty sweet too, and a good ‘get-yer-feet-wet’ before India.
Good luck and safe travels, soul brethren
Monday, May 25, 2009
Living Within a Living System
We live within a living system. Our Earth is alive. We are inside a Life-process that's bigger than us.
Direct perception of nature through our senses, through our bodies working the land, through our food creates a deep, strange flow of information and knowledge directly from Earth. When we press against the glass through gardening, we peer into a world that surrounds us, but that we don't see. They say fish don't see the the water they're in. Humans don't see the living system we live within. But we are in something! We are part of, immeshed in, inside the terrarium of life on Earth.
Paul Hawkin gave a beautiful commencement address to the University of Portland that was on Commondreams.org.
He said 'All the living systems of the planet are in decline and the rate of decline is increasing. and there is no peer-reviewed article in 30 years that would contradict this fact.' i have been chewing this over, this bitter truth, this reality that's perhaps to grim and big to stuff into the soundbite consensus reality.
All the living systems are declining.
Why is there so little discussion of the actual state of the Earth? The house is on fire and we seem hypnotized in our beds, in the 'cultural trance' that the Pachamama Alliance talked about.
Humanity must drop the adolescent renter mentality to the delicate bio-fabric of Creation that birthed our species. Corporate chemists dump pollution into the bio-soup of LIfe. Next thing, our elders have Alzehimer's and Parkinson's because the delicate chemistry of the brain gets all screwy. Opps. Probably shouldn't have operated an entire civilization using a harsh slash-and-burn chemistry. Instead, we want a green chemistry.
Recently I read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. It was so good and useful. The main point is that industrial chemicals don't stop at the borders between things. Pesticides to leaf to seed to babyfood to baby brain to Alzehimers. Our society has yet to act upon Carson's insight. I recommend "A Sense of Wonder", the play about Rachel Carson's life, and the interview with Bill Moyers by the actress Kaulani Lee. Rachel Carson was a great American heroine and her message is essential if humanity is to make into the livable, fun, non-sucko future.
Direct perception of nature through our senses, through our bodies working the land, through our food creates a deep, strange flow of information and knowledge directly from Earth. When we press against the glass through gardening, we peer into a world that surrounds us, but that we don't see. They say fish don't see the the water they're in. Humans don't see the living system we live within. But we are in something! We are part of, immeshed in, inside the terrarium of life on Earth.
Paul Hawkin gave a beautiful commencement address to the University of Portland that was on Commondreams.org.
He said 'All the living systems of the planet are in decline and the rate of decline is increasing. and there is no peer-reviewed article in 30 years that would contradict this fact.' i have been chewing this over, this bitter truth, this reality that's perhaps to grim and big to stuff into the soundbite consensus reality.
All the living systems are declining.
Why is there so little discussion of the actual state of the Earth? The house is on fire and we seem hypnotized in our beds, in the 'cultural trance' that the Pachamama Alliance talked about.
Humanity must drop the adolescent renter mentality to the delicate bio-fabric of Creation that birthed our species. Corporate chemists dump pollution into the bio-soup of LIfe. Next thing, our elders have Alzehimer's and Parkinson's because the delicate chemistry of the brain gets all screwy. Opps. Probably shouldn't have operated an entire civilization using a harsh slash-and-burn chemistry. Instead, we want a green chemistry.
Recently I read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. It was so good and useful. The main point is that industrial chemicals don't stop at the borders between things. Pesticides to leaf to seed to babyfood to baby brain to Alzehimers. Our society has yet to act upon Carson's insight. I recommend "A Sense of Wonder", the play about Rachel Carson's life, and the interview with Bill Moyers by the actress Kaulani Lee. Rachel Carson was a great American heroine and her message is essential if humanity is to make into the livable, fun, non-sucko future.
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