All-natural Bug Dope

courtesy of: http://www.drugoe-kino.ru/images/download/Mortadelo/MOSQUITO.jpg

Tired of getting eaten alive by those end-of-summer mosquitos, but don't feel like covering your pristine body with toxic DEET? Here's my favorite all-natural mosquito repellent:

Ingredients (all of these ingredients can be purchased at Health Food and Herbal stores):
Bottle or container with a tight-fitting lid
Aloe vera gel
Essential oils of Eucalyptus, Tea tree, Citronella, and Lavender

Instructions:
Fill the bottle 85% full of Aloe vera gel. Then add in the essential oils (approx 10 drops each per 500mL, depending on how stong you want it).

Shake it up, then slather yourself in your yummy-smelling concoction.

i am not a pretty girl

courtesy of: http://live.quizilla.com/user_images/B/blackcat000/1054326558_ultsdamsel.jpg

i am not a pretty girl
that is not what i do
i ain't no damsel in distress
and i don't need to be rescued
so put me down punk
maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair
isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

i am not an angry girl
but it seems like i've got everyone fooled
every time i say something they find hard to hear
they chalk it up to my anger
and never to their own fear
and imagine you're a girl
just trying to finally come clean
knowing full well they'd prefer you
were dirty and smiling

and i am sorry
i am not a maiden fair
and i am not a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere

and generally my generation
wouldn't be caught dead working for the man
and generally i agree with them
trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan
and i have earned my disillusionment
i have been working all of my life
and i am a patriot
i have been fighting the good fight
and what if there are no damsels in distress
what if i knew that and i called your bluff?
don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down
whether or not you ever show up

i am not a pretty girl
i don't want to be a pretty girl
no i want to be more than a pretty girl

-Ani Difranco

"I love the smell of Monsanto in the morning"

courtesy of: http://www.kinoweb.de/film2001/ApocalypseNowRedux/pix/anx42_L.jpg

"Occasionally I saw these [genetically deformed] children in contaminated villages in the Mekong Delta; and whenever I asked about them, people pointed to the sky; one man scratched in the dust a good likeness of a bulbous C-130 aircraft, spraying." -John Pilger, war correspondent

"Monsanto covered up the dioxin contamination of a wide range of its products. Monsanto either failed to report contamination, submitted false information purporting to show no contamination or submitted samples to to the government for analysis which had been specially prepared so that dioxin contamination did not exist." -Cate Jenkins, EPA Regulatory Development Branch

Ah... where to begin?

Monsanto was the main manufacturer of Agent Orange, a herbicide used in Vietnam by the US military during the Vietnam War. Between 1961 and 1971, the American army sprayed areas of southern Vietnam with 79 million liters of Agent Orange. This was done with the aim of killing vegetation in the rainforest to allow the armed forces better visibility in seeing Vietcong resistance guerillas.

There are currently approximately 150,000 children in Vietnam whose parents allege that their birth defects are caused by exposure to Agent Orange during the war, or the consumption of dioxin-contaminated food and water since 1975 (Agent Orange contained dioxin). The Vietnamese government estimates that three million Vietnamese were exposed to these chemicals during the war, and that at least 800,000 suffer serious health problems today as a result. Many US war veterans have also been seriously affected by the chemical.

Presently, Monsanto is creating and aggresively marketing pesticides (ex. Roundup) and genetically modified seeds, as well as patenting living organisms. This has resulted in negative social and ecological consequences worldwide, such as drastic alteration of traditional livelihoods, loss of seed diversity, devaluation of women and men's knowledge, and ecological contamination. Ensuing revolts have occured worldwide, including in Vietnam.

Further reading:
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/shiva.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monsanto/agentorange032102.cfm
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11638
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/orange.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

Lunar Planting

courtesy of: http://www.marciaweberartobjects.com/5937.jpg

Lunar planting is an ancient system known to nearly every early culture throughout the world. The moon controls ocean tides, influences the groundwater tables beneath our feet, regulates the menstrual cycles of organisms, and the movement of fluids in plants. Even continental land masses are said to rise 2 to 3 feet in elevation with the passage of the moon.

Understanding the effects, and timing planting tasks accordingly, are the basis of moon cycle planting. The Moon phase is the dominant influence in lunar planting.

The moon moves through a complete cycle every 29 days. For moon planting purposes, this cycle is divided into four quarters or phases. The term "phase" refers to the moon's shape as viewed from earth during the month. For novices, there are almanacs and calendars that list the exact times and dates of the moon phases.

Herbalists who use this lunar system and are said to produce more potent medicinal and culinary plants.

Sources:
http://www.users.on.net/~arachne/MoonPlanting.html
http://www.plantea.com/planting-moon-phases.htm

Ode to Phytoplankton

courtesy of Michael Martin

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that live in the ocean. They are the basis of oceanic biological productivity (the ocean's ability to support life) and they produce half of the world's oxygen through photosynthesis. (The other half is produced on land by trees and other plants.)

The Diatoms, a group of Phytoplankton, are responsible for 20% to 25% of all organic carbon fixation on the planet (turning carbon dioxide and water into sugars, using the sun's light energy). Because phytoplankton can double in population once a day, they respond very quickly to changes in their environment.

Despite their significant contribution to the planet's atmosphere and cycling, this group of organisms is not often studied or appreciated.

Sources:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0607_040607_phytoplankton.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Phytoplankton/phytoplankton2.html

Capitalism in a Nutshell

courtesy of: http://plus.maths.org/issue18/features/hawking/images/nutshell.jpg

Ever wondered about the origins of the much-contested term 'capitalism'? I did, so here's ' the History of Capitalism' in a nutshell:

Capitalism is an European Enlightenment term and originates from mercantilism, which is defined as the distribution of goods in order to realize a profit. Essentially, goods are bought at a location for one price and sold at another site for a higher price.

Mercantilism began in the early Middle Ages in Rome and the Middle East. Arabic cultures have a long history of mercantilism and Medieval Europeans learned mercantilism from their Islamic neighbors. This can be seen by the number of economic terms in European languages derived from Arabic, like “tariff” and “traffic”.

From the 1300s, Europeans began to expand their mercantile practices; this motivated them, in the same way it did the Muslims, to explore far-off parts of the world. The voyages of discovery were entirely driven by mercantile ambitions.

Over the years, mercantilism evolved into economic practices that would eventually be called capitalism. Capitalism is based on the same principle as mercantilism: the large-scale realization of a profit by acquiring goods for lower prices than one sells them.

Reference
Hooker, Richard. (1996). “Capitalism.” in The European Enlightenment Glossary from Washington State University. Retrieved on July 17, 2005 from: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/CAPITAL.HTM

How doth the little crocodile

courtesy of:http://www.filarakia-kos.gr/crocy.gif

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

-Lewis Carroll

Terra Nullius

courtesy of: http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/al-madaan.jpg

Here is an exerpt from Naomi Klein's article, "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism":

"Few ideologues can resist the allure of a blank slate--that was colonialism's seductive promise: "discovering" wide-open new lands where utopia seemed possible. But colonialism is dead, or so we are told; there are no new places to discover, no terra nullius (there never was), no more blank pages on which, as Mao once said, "the newest and most beautiful words can be written." There is, however, plenty of destruction--countries smashed to rubble, whether by so-called Acts of God or by Acts of Bush (on orders from God). And where there is destruction there is reconstruction, a chance to grab hold of "the terrible barrenness," as a UN official recently described the devastation in Aceh, and fill it with the most perfect, beautiful plans.

"We used to have vulgar colonialism," says Shalmali Guttal, a Bangalore-based researcher with Focus on the Global South. "Now we have sophisticated colonialism, and they call it 'reconstruction.'" "

For the full article, see: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20050502&s=klein

Guerilla sociology

courtesy of Susan Diehl (http://susandiehl.com/Gallery%201.htm)

Here are some fun bath concoctions. They are one of my roomate Tonya's many contributions to guerilla sociology...

Bath Bombs

Baking soda 1.5 cups
Citric acid (available at drugstores) 0.5 cup
Fragrance oil 1.5 tsp
Food colouring
Water in a spray bottle

Combine baking soda and citric acid in a small bowl. Add fragrance oil and food colouring and mix well. Spray surface of mixture with water until dampened. Keep spraying and mixing until mixture begins to clump. Form balls with hands or scoop into balls or press firmly into moulds. Release onto wax paper covered baking sheet. Let dry for at least 8 hours. (note: the key to this recipe is to add very little water and start forming balls early on- if you have cookie cutters you make bombs in fun shapes).

Milk Bath

Skim milk powder 2 cups
Baking soda 0.5 cup
Cornstarch 1 Tbsp
Fragrance oil

Mix all ingredients together and store in a container with a tight fitting lid.

Pop culture

courtesy of: http://www.jackfleming.com/DancingGirl.jpg.jpg

"The overall systemic function of popular culture within capitalism is to reconcile capital's subordinates to their position within the economy. It does not lead them to love their domination, or even necessarily to deny it. It merely provides enough rewards in the form of pleasure, escape, or identification...to make subordination bearable and to keep us coming back to the culture industry for more limited relief. Jaded detachment and withdrawal into surface pleasure is one form of reconciliation. The articulation and validation of struggle without change is another."
-David Tetzlaff

Junk

courtesy of: www.country-liberal-party.com

Junk food is a slang word for foods with limited nutritional value. The term 'junk food' usually refers to foods like pop, candy, potato chips and fastfoods like burgers and fries. Characteristically, junk food is high in salt, sugar, fat and/or calories and has a low nutrient content. It is also notorious for having numerous food additives which are chemicals used to enhance flavor, adjust texture, alter color, and prevent spoilage.

When junk foods regularly replace other types of foods in the daily diet, obesity, malnutrition (eg. vitamin and mineral deficiencies), and other health problems like heart disease and osteoporosis can occur.

Most junk food brands (Kraft, McDonalds, Hostess, etc.) are owned by large multinational companies. In addition to spending huge amounts of money on advertising to convince consumers to buy their products, many of these companies are frequently involved in less than desirable corporate behaviour.

Take Coca-Cola for example. The United Steelworkers union and the International Labor Rights Fund have filed suit against Coca-Cola, alleging that the company and some of its bottlers use right-wing paramilitary groups to intimidate and assassinate labor organizers in Columbia. In the last seven years, the number of union workers at Coca-Cola plants in Columbia has dropped from 1,300 to 450.

Coca Cola has also previously been under fire for race distrimination in the US, maltreatment of workers in Guatemala, and environmental/community degradation in India. Currently, the University of Michigan has placed Coca-Cola on probation for its crimes in India and Colombia.

Please take part in the international boycott of Coca Cola products.

For more info, check out: http://www.killercoke.org/protest.htm and
http://www.indiaresource.org/

The Urban Ecosystem

courtesy of: http://www.rion.nu/v5/post/021302/140-4044_IMGmed.jpg

My latest fascination is the concept of an urban ecosystem. An ecosystem is defined as "a general term used to describe one or more communities that are interacting with their environment as a defined unit (Freedman, 2004)." An urban ecosystem, then, is simply those communities and interactions taking place within a city.

I love the idea of the city as a living entity, like the Gaia Hypothesis, that breathes and sweats and excretes waste like any other organism. Cities are so fascinating because they are founded on a bundle of man-made buildings and infrastructure, yet are encapsulated within the greater biosphere of our Planet.

Cities are just as natural as an anthill or a beehive. Organisms are constantly modifying their environment, and buiding organized structures to suit their needs. Cities are peoples' expression of this, and also host a huge diversity of other organisms including squirrels, cockroaches, racoons, and pigeons. We need to stop viewing ourselves and our structures as unnatural blemishes on the Planet and start learning how we can more effectively integrate our civilization into Earth's cycles and processes.

References/Further readings:

Freedman, Bill. 2004. Environmental Science: A Canadian perspective (3rd Edition). Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, Inc.

Rogers, Richard. (1997). Cities for a small planet. Great Britain: Faber and Faber Limited.

Trefil, James. 1994. A Scientist in the City. New York: Doubleday.