1. 26 July 2008

    Edible Estates

    73 days ago

    Attack on the front lawn. A not–all–that–interesting book, but on an interesting trend. My family’s house is on a double lot, roughly 80 feet wide. With front and back yards there’s very likely enough area that we could grow half of the food we eat in the summer. Being in minnesota would limit our choices a bit, but we could get over it and it’s not like there isn’t a grocer 5 minutes away by bike. But we have a reasonable green lawn instead. We have a rotary clipper—human-powered—and so don’t spew carbon into the air mowing it (1 hour of mowing your lawn is the equivalent of a 150km car trip), nor do we fertilize it with chemicals. But when you step back and think about it, the industry behing lawn care is indeed an insidious one.

    We do have a decent garden, though most of it’s for show. I started an herb garden in the side yard years ago, which I quickly neglected, but it’s still going. No vegetables though. I just don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to gardening, and I don’t want to mess up my mom’s domain. When I get a place of my own I plan on starting a garden, but then maybe that’s just my deferral instinct talking. Who knows.

  2. 01 May 2006

    890 days ago

    Colbert Rips the President a New One

    The President was upset? Good. I hope the President was sleepless with rage. At least then he’d know how most of us have been spending every night for the last three years.

    I think the whole thing is a little overblown. Colbert didn’t even accuse the president of killing thousands. But better than nothing I guess.

    via Kjell Olsen890 days ago

  3. 31 January 2006

    980 days ago

    Sheehan arrested in House gallery

    So my idea about tshirts might not have been so naive after all. It was, in fact, seditious enough to get Cindy Sheehan arrested on her way in to watch Bush’s speech.

    I knew this whole free speech thing was too good to last.

    via Kjell Olsen980 days ago

  4. 25 January 2006

    Six Letter Word

    986 days ago


    Shalt thou not kill? And while we’re at it…


    More than two dozen students in the audience responded by turning their backs on Mr. Gonzales and standing stone-faced before live television cameras for the duration of his half-hour speech. Five protesters in the group donned black hoods and unfurled a banner, quoting Benjamin Franklin, that read, 'Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.'

  5. 08 December 2005

    1034 days ago

    Playwright Takes a Prize and a Jab at U.S.

    The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. Harold Pinter

    Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties, but it’s very comfortable. Harold Pinter

    via Kjell Olsen1034 days ago

  6. 04 October 2005

    1099 days ago

    George Monbiot: The police abuse terror laws to penalise dissent

    No act has been passed over the past 20 years with the aim of preventing antisocial behaviour, disorderly conduct, trespass, harassment and terrorism that has not also been deployed to criminalise a peaceful public engagement in politics.

    via Kjell Olsen1099 days ago

  7. Also somewhat recently

      |