In the past two weeks I've seen deer in our back yard three times. When they spot me they aren't even very startled, they just saunter off into the woods at their own pace.

I think they're building up the courage to get at our lettuce patch in the front... wouldn't you?

Pretty soon we'll have basil, garlic scapes, spinach, peas, and strawberries galore. I don't think we'll have enough netting to guard them all, so we'll see how they fare. We have lots of furry bumble bees buzzing around the periphery due to the abundance of wild lilacs and vinca (both dark purple). Then this morning I saw a beautiful, shaggy fox come all the way up to the edge of the house (no pic, he was too quick). Is he coming for our produce too? Do they eat roughage? And aren't foxes nocturnal?

I feel like I'm living at Walden Pond, while only three blocks away from a Mobil gas station, Rite Aid, and a big city park. We don't have very much land, but what we do have, Jason and Kira (my housemates) cultivate and preserve to the fullest extent. It makes me hopeful to see such wildness so close to the city. It makes me believe that radical environmentalism doesn't require retreating to the forests, just clever innovation and retilling of our plots. Sustainable city living is far more radical (and difficult) than grabbing the EMS gear and heading to the hills.

Posted by tony at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Following Dan's lead, I'm posting my first poem ever written:

goodbye G-RAD, hello Grad school

Grad school is not romantic whatsoever, let me explain:
I spend many hours each day alone, playing with texts.
The paper is my map, the pen is my compass - but I never leave a 3 ft. cube.
Last night I left my office at 2:30am and awoke at 8:30am today.
I sit for more than 10 hours a day and get little physical activity.
Because I barely move, I shouldn't eat - but do - which adds to the lethargy.
This is a solitary and rigorous excercise in brain bruising and bursting.
And in a culture that doesn't value nuanced intelligence, the goals & rewards have to be made & reaped inner-personally.

I'm reading great books, learning from great profs, but it is tangential to the bulk of other things one could be doing.
It's like boot camp for the brain - the effects are good (& sought after), but they come at a high cost to the body.
My neck is always stiff, eyes constantly strained. I grind my teeth more than ever from the stress.
But it isn't bad, it's just my state of being. I read, I think, I write. Everything else is merely peripheral.

by tony

Posted by tony at 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As we begin to face the high cost of fossil fuels, we must call into question how we travel from one place to another. The ways we travel in America -- by car and by plane -- are among the most inefficient modes of transportation available.

The French have faced high fuel costs for many years, mainly the result of a high level of taxation on oil-based energies. Whatever the reason, the French opted in the critical years following World War II to modernize their rail system. This continued into the recent past, when, in the 1980s, the French began building the now famous TGV rail lines, the first one between Paris and Lyon. TGV is a simple acronym for Train à grande vitesse or "High speed train".

There are now several TGV lines across France, some of which extend into neighboring countries (the Eurostar travels under the Chunnel, the Thalys runs to Belgium, and so on). Depending on the line, TGV trains run at approximately 186 miles per hour, some faster (the most recent Paris-Strasbourg line cruises at approximately 315 km/hour or 200 mph). The SNCF, or French National Railways (a public corporation), is currently in the process of developing the next generation of TGVs, which will be known as AGVs (for Automatrice à grande vitesse, the term automatric harking back to a term used for early locomotives).

The AGV will travel at nearly 360 km/h; however, the main technological breakthroughs are in efficiency and comfort: lighter materials, a system for recovering lost energy during braking and improved aerodynamics will provide a train that is not only more comfortable but also extremely efficient. According to the train's developer, high speed train travel produces much less CO2 in the atmosphere as compared with airplanes, buses and automobiles.

Posted by dang! at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wanderlust

Wanderlust under winter pines, spruce-tree bogs met moons ago,

Still,
Memories of
steeping steam,
the moon beams through the fog
slowly drifting by.

Silence of late-summer's sighs,
Sighs which I heard
in the Owl's wings, moving across the Lake
Surely spinning threads of To-day
As each stroke shifted and hissed---
the flurries drifting by the window
fell.
Figments of Time meeting matter.

Wander

Lost in this whirling cycle.

The Flame of the burning candle,
The Bulb of the Lamp .... Electric Sun of this dank dream.

Free and real are the moments met...

I have given the Moon to the Flame
and the Flame now belongs to her,

the floating feathers are now of an Other place,
from a Cloud of Memory.
Falling,
migration beyond imagination.

by Dang

Posted by dang! at 10:38 PM | Permalink

If you haven't watched the above short, please do so now. It's just under 7 minutes long and carries the distinction of being made by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein, and directed by Jonas Cuarón (Alfonso's son). The footage is disturbing, the animated graffiti art is outstanding, and the message rings loud and clear. I plan on buying the book soon. Has anybody read it yet?

I am currently researching the practice of torture on prisoners in Abu Ghraib (ironically the same prison that Saddam Hussein's regime used for massive torture), Guantanamo Bay, CIA "black" prisons and "extraordinary rendition". In addition to learning the history of certain torture cases, I'm analyzing the rhetoric used by U.S. administration to justify interrogation practices that are almost unanimously considered torture (and illegal). Since the administration can't deny recorded and reported events, they must make sure that the definition of torture doesn't include what they have been doing ubiquitously, and until now, shamelessly. Our governments' legal and semantic maneuvering is designed to avoid legal charges, not to excuse itself of its huge moral impropriety.

Now there will be an investigation into destroyed interrogation tapes that the CIA did not produce when asked by the 9/11 Commission. This is frustrating and damning, but not the least surprising.

I'm sure many of you already knew most of this, but the reports I'm reading are so shocking I felt compelled to post. For example, an independent Red Cross report stated that "... between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake." Apparently we were so hell-bent on finding Saddam that incarcerating and torturing any Iraqi civilian was necessary. I would hope that we are far enough away from the shock of 9/11 to be appalled and disgusted by this. If we held ourselves up to Thoreau's standards, all who pay taxes would be considered responsible for these atrocities.

tony

Posted by tony at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The following entry is posted at the behest of our housemate Dan, who is still waiting for his own "blogin":

In the last blog, mention was made of my hometown of Auburn Hills. As I re-read that message, I realize that the words used to describe AH are less than flattering: mosquito swamps and landfills are only part of the picture. I grew up in this distant suburb of Detroit while it was still Auburn Heights, and was more countryside than suburb. Our back yard was indeed a swamp: we called it "the woods". Aside from the mosquitoes though, I have only positive memories of it. In the Spring there were jack-in-the-pulpits and red-wing blackbirds. Summer nights were filled with fireflies. We had cattails, joe-pye weed and touch-me-nots in late summer. Ducks came to visit, along with an occasional pheasant. I remember several years where a covey of bobwhite lived in the woods. It was so rural back in the 70s that we even had a skeet club nearby. In later years many of the birds stopped coming and the noise level from M-59 and I-75 increased to the point where it was hard to keep the windows open at night. Now AH is radically different: the roads, landfills and housing developments are so extensive that at times I hardly recognize the place I grew up. There are only a few vestiges here and there of the natural environment that existed barely thirty years ago.

Continue reading "Un-S p r a w l" »

Posted by tony at 10:07 PM | Permalink

None of us are from Grand Rapids, but we are all true Michiganders.

Tony grew up in the village of Saranac and spent his adolescence in farm country milking cows and filling propane tanks in between Newaygo & Howard City. La Kate hails from Byron Center, where, as legend has it, a 15-foot chicken statue intrigued and scared children for years. Jake calls Pittsford home, where they're known for their rugged good looks and annual hay-bale tossing competitions. And finally, Dan grew up amid the mosquito swamps and rolling green landfills of Auburn Hills.

Now we all live on the near-West Side of Grand Rapids* and we like it enough to present our first (& last?) top-ten list:

Reasons to have West Side Pride

• The Rapid's #50 bus line to Grand Valley runs right by the hive. (we hear its diesel 'humm' every 8 minutes)
• Very near to the YMCA (great place for yoga).
• Fast walk to the West Side Branch library & easy bike ride to the Main GRPL.
• Walk to many downtown locations (Bridge Street, Monroe Center, etc...)
• Close proximity to many public parks and "swides". (Gabe's #s 1-10)
• Easy, free parking along Lake Michigan Drive's huge shoulders. (great for running too!)
• Close to both highways (131 & 196) for easy exits.
• No hill to climb to get back from downtown.
• Quick access to Kent Trails.
and lastly...
• Close to Parkway Tropics (we've never been there, but it serves well as a humiliatingly good landmark in case you need to give directions)

Although we have nothing against other parts of the city, we particularly like residing in what a friend calls the "suburbs of GR". This troubles and slightly offends me, but not enough to move.

*Dan lives 3/4 time here and 1/4 time at his home in Petoskey.

Posted by tony at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)