sastyk
Posts by this author
June 28, 2012
While I recover from a nasty case of food poisoning, I thought in honor of the SCOTUS decision, it would be worth re-running this piece from 2009. For all that this is not the national health care system the US needs, it is, in the end, a small step in the right direction.
A while back, at a talk…
June 22, 2012
Well, since the Rio Summit failed to save the world (again), and we're slipping back into economic crisis, and _Making Home_ my book on Adapting-in-Place comes out in August, it seems like the right time to teach my AIP class again. It helps to renew my sense of purpose as well - there's nothing…
June 22, 2012
So everyone raise your hand if you are shocked, shocked and appalled, that the sum up for the Earth Summit Rio+20 conference was, as the UK's Deputy Prime Minister put it "Insipid."
The meeting, marking 20 years since the iconic Earth Summit in the same city and 40 since the very first global…
June 20, 2012
Apologies to everyone for the radio silence - lots of stuff going on here and the blog has been horribly neglected. Between trying to get the final garden push done, a bunch of goat birthing (including four beautiful babies yesterday for Eric's 42nd birthday - Urania gave us Tybalt and Mercutio in…
June 7, 2012
I really wish I could share pictures of K. and C., who are having their first farm springtime, complete with baby goats, dam building in the creek, their own gardens, finding nests of newly hatched chicks, catching toads and salamanders, eating salads made with wild greens they collect themselves,…
June 5, 2012
The first person to ever refer to me as middle-aged in print was my friend Rod Dreher. On the one hand, I appreciated the publicity. On the other hand, I was 34 at the time, and I may never entirely forgive him. Still, the shock has waned, and I have come to terms with the fact that if I'm not…
June 5, 2012
Greenpa asked me to talk about how we cook in the summer, and that's a very good subject to talk about - what does a woman who "dances with wood" and cooks on a wood cookstove all winter long do in the summer? Well, part of the answer is that when we're lazy, we use the electric stove that came…
May 30, 2012
I try to post this once a year or so, because most of the people who read my blog also play in the dirt, and with playing in the dirt comes minor injuries that you really don't want to turn into anything nasty. So, if you haven't had a tetanus booster in the last decade, or don't remember having…
May 30, 2012
From The Nation, Laura Flanders has a piece on what happened to all those long-term unemployed people who have given up - with a flattering quote from yours truly (the quote is further along, to give you an incentive to read the whole thing ;-)).
Look around, it’s much more likely that the…
May 30, 2012
Hi Folks - Just to let you know, I do know about the disappearing comments, and I'm sorry about it. ScienceBlogs is working on getting the bugs out of the new format. Apologies for the inconvenience - I'm hoping some of them come back one of these days! If it is any consolation, a number of my…
May 29, 2012
The minute I announced my pregnancy with Simon, the first question most people asked me was "Oh, are you trying for a girl?" I admit, the question annoyed me. The implication seemed to be that everyone dreams of the perfect matched set, one boy and one girl. In fact, I always had a strong…
May 28, 2012
For some reason the steamed and boiled fruit pudding never properly took permanent hold in the New World. It was, by and large, the dessert of choice in Britain for centuries. You could certainly find it in the early days of the colonies, and into the early 19th century, basically as long as open…
May 23, 2012
So with the return of spring comes the return of Occupy, which by and large, is probably a good thing. OWS deserves some props for drawing attention to inequity, for bringing radicalism back, and for showing a very complacent corporate and political leadership that the people still have bite in…
May 21, 2012
The always-thoughtful Kurt Cobb has a great piece on the intersection between the hydrofracking boom and the mortgage mess:
One fact ought to tell you all you need to know about the risks faced by homeowners signing leases for natural gas drilling on their property: Wells Fargo & Company, both…
May 21, 2012
These fragments I have shored against my ruins. - T. S. Eliot
The national news trucks hit my neighborhood last fall, as some of you will remember. When Tropical Storm Irene caused severe flooding and destruction in surrounding communities, and particularly to many of my neighbor's farms, we were…
May 11, 2012
I get a lot of books for review, and for the most part, they are wonderful surprises. Because I receive and read so many books, I rarely sit around saying "Hey, where's my review copy of...X?" Generally I've got a giant pile of books that I need to get to anyway, so I'm much more likely to say "…
May 10, 2012
Let's be honest, when you work on energy and environmental issues for a living, good news is always welcome. And when it is good news that makes your kids happy, well, even better. President Obama's coming forward in support of gay marriage didn't fix all problems, but it made everyone in our…
May 9, 2012
Isn't it obvious? We gave women the right to vote. As Raw Story reports:
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, a tea party activist that's appeared several times on Fox News, and founder of an organization where Sean Hannity serves as an advisory board member, said in a sermon recently published to YouTube…
May 8, 2012
Speaking as someone with kids who pretty much are Alligators All Around and Wild Things most of the time, I'm going to miss him. Thanks, Maurice, for the books that fed my childhood and now the childhood of all the kids I love!
May 8, 2012
So here's what we actually ate yesterday. In addition to the list below, btw, C. and K., the new guys ate a fair number of totally non-local oranges and bananas, as well as some local apples. Because they've experienced real hunger, they have a bowl of fruit in their room that they can eat…
May 8, 2012
it has been quiet around here because late last Tuesday we got a placement of two boys, C., 7 and K., 8. In the chaos of getting everyone settled, dealing with all the legal requirements, paperwork and appointments that a foster placement entails and getting them back to school, the blog has taken…
April 30, 2012
The Astrophysicist, when he has time, will have something to say about his reading of the physics of the material Tom Whipple sums up.
This situation however seems to be changing following a lengthy interview with a fellow out in Berkeley, California by the name of Robert Godes of Brillouin…
April 26, 2012
Just about every sustainability magazine on the planet, much less the food ones seems obsessed with no-knead breads. No-knead is trumpeted by everyone on the planet as the easy, awesome way to make bread, the thing that will convert non-bread makers into converts. Now don't get me wrong - I don't…
April 24, 2012
(Mina with Goneril and Cordelia - Regan is on the other side of her out of sight)
No-drama Obama has nothing on No-drama Mina, who calmly gave us triplet doelings last night with no muss or fuss. Yes, that's three little girls from her over-achieverness. And she politely waited until we were…
April 23, 2012
Note, I'm horrified to realize I inadvertantly left out the link to Rhagavan's piece - SO SORRY about that, and please do click through - it is well worth a full read.
Barath Rhagavan has a superb article about the conversion of many climate scientists to support of nuclear power and the reasons…
April 20, 2012
The EIA, unlike the IEA, has been strident in its dismissal of peak oil. But the data that the EIA publishes tells a very different story than the one it wants us to hear. Gail the Actuary has a really good analysis up at the Oil Drum.. The essential message - that crude oil production remains…
April 20, 2012
Note, no matter what I do it won't embed properly - sorry about that. Here's the link and thanks to Kerri for finding it: http://tinyurl.com/3sxfdjf
Friend Jerah sent this to me, pointing out that since I don't use a refrigerator, my family is among the .04% of the US population that constitutes…
April 18, 2012
So you had babies, or are about to, right? Now you have to milk. It really, really helps to see it:
We're on baby goat watch here, and looking forward to the run of milk!
Sharon
April 16, 2012
"Context is everything. Breastfeeding is almost universally beneficial in infants, but in an elderly cardiac patient, it can be fatal." - Spider Robinson
Quite a number of readers suggested I respond to James McWilliams' piece in the New York Times "The Myth of Sustainable Meat." McWilliams has…
April 12, 2012
In the NYTimes today, Nicholas Kristoff asks just the wrong question "Is an egg for breakfast worth this?" Of course, it isn't, but that's not the right way to frame this. Nothing about an egg for breakfast could be worth this in terms of animal cruelty, human health or any number of other…