I asked many of my co-workers and friends what they know about the Federal Reserve. Some never heard of it and others just “stay out of politics”.  Congress either understands the Federal Reserve about as well as me and the people I work with or they understand it very well and use it for their own purposes.  My guess is there is a little of both.

Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law in 1913 with hopes of  keeping the American economy stable.  The great depression happened after the stock market crashed in 1929 so apparently it didn’t work.  Conspiracy theories portray that It worked out nicely for the guys funding the Federal Reserve.

By the way did you know Woodrow Wilson’s second wife Edith was a descendant of Pocahontas and he was instrumental in women gaining the right to vote as well as creating the IRS and involving us in WWI.

It seems that Wilson’s purpose, which was passed by congress, was to establish a system of banking that would remain independent but overseen by congress to protect the American economy.   My smart friend Fred says… ‘ There is evidence that no one in government or banking has been properly taught recently. At least they don’t seem to be interested in financial stability as much as in how to flip securities and create new “products” to flim-flam investors, other banks and foreign governments. ”

Oversight of the Federal Reserve is quite obviously an important issue that we need to understand and pay attention to.  As Fred stated “Money is a debt of the government with no interest rate. When you have a hundred dollar bill it means the government owes you a hundred dollars. You can take it to any bank and exchange it for another or a combination of smaller  currency or coin equal to $100.  You used to be able to get gold or silver but that was eliminated in 1933. Can you imagine trying to keep track of a $5 gold fleck?”

So, we can’t run around with little gold flecks in our pockets or chickens or buckets of oil or items of value so money is printed.  A loan from the government covered by the value of the US treasury which is manipulated by the individuals at the Federal Reserve.  We vote for congressmen to keep an eye on the Fed, AKA oversight.

In 1895, the Federal Treasury was nearly out of gold. President Grover Cleveland arranged for J.P. Morgan to create a private syndicate on Wall Street to supply the U.S. Treasury with $65 million in gold. JP Morgan pretty much owned the US treasury, as a consequence Cleveland, a democrat, angered his democratic constituents, and lost the presidency to Republican William McKinley.  Mckinley established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money with the Gold Standard Act in 1900.  He was assassinated in 1901.

Another panic in 1907 was a financial crisis that almost crippled the American economy, yet again. Major New York banks were on the verge of bankruptcy and there was no mechanism to rescue them until Morgan stepped in, yet again and personally took charge, resolving the crisis.

Morgan organized a team of bank and trust executives which redirected money between banks.  A delicate political issue arose regarding the brokerage firm of Moore and Schley, which was deeply involved in a speculative pool in the stock of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Moore and Schley had pledged over six million of the Tennessee Coal and Iron (TCI) stock for loans among the Wall Street banks. The banks had called the loans, and the firm could not pay.  If Moore and Schley should fail, a hundred more failures would follow and then all Wall Street might go to pieces.  Too big to fail was going on back in 1907. Morgan decided they had to save Moore and Schley.

Vowing to never let it happen again, and realizing that in a future crisis there was not likely to be another Morgan, banking and political leaders, led by Senator Nelson Aldrich devised a plan that became the Federal Reserve System in 1913. The crisis underscored the need for a powerful mechanism, and Morgan supported the move to create the Federal Reserve System.  Yay!! it’ll never happen again and we don’t have to pay attention.  Then you may ask “Why did the great depression happen if the Federal Reserve System was established to protect the American economy”?  Well, either something evil was going on or just plain stupidity (on our part) and greed.

President Lincoln didn’t like the idea of a Central Bank and stated…

“The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. The banking powers are more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. They denounce as public enemies all who question their methods or throw light upon their crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe. Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed.”

Shortly after he said this, he was assassinated.

Banks store our money for us so we don’t have to walk around with our wad in our boots.  It isn’t sitting in a vault waiting for us to come and get it.  The bank has devised ways to turn our little wad into a bigger wad for themselves through speculation and manipulation of fractional reserves (watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE to understand it better). They also extend credit to us based on our wad and make money off the interest.

We all need to treat our credit cards like a 30 day note, you borrow to get things you want in the immediate sense rather than having to wait for your next paycheck.  If you pay it back before the 30 days is up, you don’t have to pay interest, you just pay back what you borrowed. So we can live happily ever after surrounded by the ones we love.  Isn’t that the ultimate goal? for our money to buy our happiness? Like a patient said to me once “you never see a hearse pulling a U-haul”.

I ran across a website that visually represented how much money BP lost due to the oil spill.   I was incredulous.  That much money exists?  It is a loss they plan to recoup.  How do you suppose they will make up the loss?

They have convinced us to drive bigger cars, drink our water from a bottle, use more plastic and carry on with war, any war.  Oil men love war.  War is what truly feeds Seymour.  You remember the insatiable plant from “Little Shop of Horrors”.  I liken the oil (and coal) industry to Seymour’s need to keep his plant alive.  In the beginning it was a nice fun little plant.  Harmless, at least relatively.  The plant like the oil industry has gotten so big it is devouring the planet through wars and plastic and large ships and cruise liners that carry us and our crap across oceans.

We are convinced that if we all pile on a giant boat together life will be more fun.  We are convinced that the stuff we have is not good enough.  It all needs to be replaced by better stuff.  Most of the stuff is plastic and plastic is made from oil and the plastic is brought to us on giant boats that require massive amounts of oil.  This insatiable need has been brought to you by the oil industry.

We can’t blame oil entirely.  Coal is what fuels this nations heat and air and lights.  The current grid was set up by the coal industry and subsidized by the US government.  It was harmless and useful in its beginnings.  What a blessing to have heat and air and light due to the fabulous grid work that traverses the nation.  Except, now it too is like Seymour’s plant.  Dividing and devouring and convincing us that nothing else will do.

So let me share the website that prompted this blog…

http://www.visualeconomics.com/what-bp-could-have-bought-with-all-the-money-they-lost/

I wrote to my smart friend Fred who gave me this reply…

So you see in the world of business BP’s loss isn’t so much. Don’t feel sorry for them. Don’t think how much good this money could have done because it pales in comparison to the money we waste on wars. Iraq I believe was $1,000 billion. That’s 112 times what BP wasted.

When you look at it this way — it isn’t oil and coal that feeds Seymour’s plant.  Economics feeds the plant.  How often does economic advantage take precedence over doing good?  Goodness faces doom when it gets in the way of the economy.

What truly amazed me is that 3.4 billion dollars would buy an ice cream sandwich for everyone in the world and yahoo is worth 20 billion.  Wouldn’t it be cool if yahoo bought an ice cream sandwich for everyone in the world?  There is probably a soy version for the lactose intolerant.

The Top 10 Things You May Not Know About the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Here are 10 aspects of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act you may not know about — the online attention-deficit version.

1. Stronger protections for consumers against unfair credit card practices like rate hikes for existing credit card balances.  When my son had a traffic accident I didn’t work for a month to be at his bedside,  I had a credit card with a 9% rate that I never used, but kept for emergencies.  As soon as I used it the rate went to 18%.  When I called to complain, they dropped the rate to 16% and told me that was “standard practice“.   I told them this was “standard bullshit” paid it off and canceled the card forever.
2. Mortgage brokers will be prohibited from making higher commissions by selling mortgages they know consumers can’t afford. But –  We love the stuff we can’t afford. We need to go back to –> we can only have what we can afford.  Then the cost of living will drop and the pay scales will rise and we’ll need less stuff.  Like “Happy Days”.
3. Free annual credit scores so people can stay on top of their finances. [Clarification: free credit scores are available if you receive worse terms on a loan because of something on your credit report, or if you are rejected. You think this will make folks stay on top of their finances?
   
4. No more taxpayer-funded bailouts. yay!! If a company can’t make it, it will have to liquidate.  If what they sell is junk, they need to go down. Like the company building junky jets for the air force — they went down.
5. Greater input by company shareholders over how much a CEO gets paid.  Companies’ compensation boards are now required to be truly independent.  you mean they weren’t in charge of a CEO’s pay or compensation?
6. Brokers who offer investment advice will have to act in the best interests of their customers, not their own financial interests.  Oh, yeah, like some federal law is gonna make that happen.
7. Financial firms won’t be allowed to grow so large that if one fails, it will affect the entire financial system.   Isn’t that why we don’t allow monopolies? When did that change?
8. There will be one agency whose sole job is to make sure that consumers get the protections they deserve and to set clear rules to hold banks, mortgage companies, payday lenders, and credit card lenders accountable.  It will be interesting to see how this works out. I’m sure you anti-government types are focusing on this one.
9. Businesses can’t be charged extra fees for debit card “swipe fees” that exceed the cost of processing transactions.
10. You can learn plenty more here at WhiteHouse,gov or at financialstability.gov
11. Updated: To tack on #11, here’s a new animated video we’ve released to further explain Wall Street Reform.

RE:  My son’s accident–> I didn’t borrow from mother, father, sister, brother or friend, I had money sitting around doing nothing waiting for the inevitable shit that happens in life.  Something governments, companies and individuals all need to do.

The Swiss bankers and the Roman Catholic Church were complicit in the Nazi regime. These were not terrible people. They were normal people. They closed their eyes to evil or justified it, for the sake of peace or gain or national loyalty. I sometimes wonder (and fear) whether I would have done the same if I had been in that society at that time. It is so easy not to see, not to hear, not to understand, when one’s own peace or prosperity is involved. There have been times, after all, when I have allowed blatantly racist statements to pass unchallenged in the name of good manners, or of just keeping the peace. For so little of one’s soul, or at least a little piece of it, is on the auction block.”

The Reverend Kathleen Damewood Korb

I have been distressed lately by the volatile nature of conversations, especially conversations involving our president.  Some of us, did not vote for him or voted for him reluctantly, some wholeheartedly, and some voted for him due to his apparent superiority over his opponent.  I find myself defending him and a few friendships have been strained.  I cherish those friendships and find that coming here is often the needed release.   So what is the right thing to do?  Stop talking, stop listening, stop reading, stop caring?

Cap and Trade is one issue that causes heated exchanges to surface.  If manufacturing moves to another country that values economy more so than the planet, then what we have achieved is a worsening of the global warming process.  Those giant ships that bring our stuff across the oceans are spewing more toxins than the plants that made the stuff in the first place.  What is the solution?  Some believe we need to drive a stake into our evil president’s heart.  I believe we need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels and instead subsidize the retooling of manufacturing plants so they’ll stay here and get green and give tax incentives for doing so. Even if you don’t believe that climate change is caused by human intervention, the climate is changing and we need to keep this little planet as clean and pristine as possible.

Certain persons in the media have made Mephistophelean bargains for power and fame using fear and greed as their catalyst.  A few of them have marketed themselves as chosen.  Chosen to teach us what God wants us to do.  People blindly believe their utterances and it is becoming impossible to sit idly by or “close my eyes for the sake of peace”.

My mother raised us to never talk politics or religion at the dinner table.  I have adhered to that rule and have enjoyed many a peaceful dinner with friends who I know don’t agree with my politics or my religion.  Once the plates are cleared and the wine and chocolates or coffee and cheesecake starts a few fists have pounded the table. There are times when it needs to be talked about though.  Not informing ourselves, not talking at all is useful for the “owners”, as George Carlin referred to the media and the companies that pay them to tell us what they want us to know.

The economy and what is best for the economy isn’t always the best solution, still, it is the solution “the owners” love.  They create or enhance or close their eyes to hate in order to improve their own economy.

It is always important to challenge hate; challenge it’s source and find it’s solution. When you don’t like the way things are, there is always a chance for a different outcome.  Our conversations need to look at all sides and possible outcomes. Are we better off doing nothing vs doing things differently?

When fists are pounding or all capital letters are being typed, chances are a point is being made.  Hopefully the point is to liberate us from hate.

If you look up alternative energy technology you’ll find articles of hope.  Energy freedom is a term to be  embraced.  I once lived in  a home we heated with a wood burning stove. heating our Wisconsin home cost nothing more than the price of a chainsaw.  It was a lot of work and I do prefer flipping a switch to stoking a wood burning stove at 2 am,  if the source of energy at the other end of that switch isn’t harming our exquisite planet.

Do you think there are energy sources out there for our near future that won’t harm the planet?   Michael Parfit writes for the National Geographic.  He has researched energy alternatives and summarized his findings nicely.  To read the entire article for yourself go to…

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature1/text3.html

He states…

the world’s concern over energy has haunted presidential speeches, congressional campaigns, disaster books, and my own sense of well-being with the same kind of gnawing unease that characterized the Cold War.

Martin Hoffert of NYU discussed on PBS.org…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/beyond/

If you were to transplant someone from 100 years ago into the year 2000, the things we do now would certainly seem magical to them.  We’re only limited by the creativity of our scientific imagination and by our will to try to find the solution.

Professor Hoffert opens eyes and minds.  He explained that most of the technological advances of the last 100 years were driven by the military and by fear.  The market (on the other hand) will only support technology if it shows a profit within 3 years.

He introduced some pretty fantastic scenarios of mining uranium and platinum from other planets and bringing it back here to power our fuel cells and nuclear reactors. There is also an idea that would only work if us planet dwellers got along and worked together.   The idea involves the dark side of the planet buying energy from the sunny side.  Space based solar collectors would collect energy from the sun and send it to us and our switches.  I am all for anything that doesn’t involve me chopping wood or harming the planet.

What professor Hoffert proposes is a policy in which developed nations initiate programs of research and development for dramatically and drastically transformative systems of energy production on the Earth. Not all of these are going to work. But the ones that are successful – and there is a possibility that several of them might be successful in some combination — will totally transform our civilization and bring us into changes that are as dramatic as the changes that took place between the end of the 19th and the end of the 20th centuries.

This is so exciting!  Who wouldn’t be excited about a new renewable energy future. Especially after watching newscasts of dead or dying pelicans smothered in oil and that sad dolphin that gasped its last breath on national television.

There is a facility of  smart people assembled by the US government called The National Renewable Energy Laboratory. http://www.nrel.gov/.  Go to their website and just peruse the great things going on there. I just wish they had more influence on the market.

Hitting us in the pocket seems to be the only way to inspire us to conserve resources.  There are just too many of us and resources are getting scarce.  We have to go farther out to sea to find oil, we have to spend more money to have clean water fall from our taps. Some of us care about leaving a clean and livable planet to our offspring and others of us just don’t want prices to go up in the immediate sense because of “scary global warming crap” they say is made up by governments to control us.  I say the market makes up garbage propaganda to control us into buying what they are selling.  (You don’t need Febreze if you keep your house clean).

Derek Thompson a staff editor at Atlantic Business states,  When something is free, you tend to use more of it. It’s true for buffets and open bars, and it’s the same with carbon. Today producers and consumers can burn coal and drive gas-guzzlers without fully paying for their contribution to rising carbon dioxide levels. Carbon emissions have a cost, but carbon emitters don’t pay the price. Economists call this a “market failure.” You can call it, “a recipe for toasting the planet.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/why-carbon-pricing-matters/58386/

I just threw this little guy in here because he is so damn cute…

Second-generation biofuels use biomass-to-liquid technology, they include cellulosic biofuels from non-food crops.   http://bioenergycenter.org/what-is-bioenergy/

Bio energy is my personal favorite and our National Bioenergy Center is doing wonderful things to change us from having to continue with oil drilling and coal mining and shale blasting for fossil fuels.  Folks in Haiti made a living chopping wood until there were no more trees in Haiti, Folks in Afghanistan made a living growing poppies and selling Opiods to the point where the whole country is stoned and angry, Folks in the US and Canada have made a living in the fossil fuel industry for so long they are mortified of the idea of no more need for fossil fuels. They — and we need to move up. Many people I have met in the US are already living “off the grid”, with wind and solar.

The future of the planet and it’s ecosystem are more important than the stock market.  I believe that the truly smart players will be the ones figuring out how to make money from doing what is right for the planet.  Difficult step for those movers and shakers out there.  It will be a step up into the breezy sunshine.

While drinking my hot beverage made from the beans of a tree and paying my water bill I started thinking more about water.  Coffee bean trees grow because of water and my coffee is brewed in water.

Water keeps our exquisite Earth alive.  It saves us and our earth from being lifeless mineral globs.  Of course, we nor the earth would be alive long if all the earths water was contaminated.  I wonder why we care more about oil,  than clean water?

The critter above seems to be savoring that little orb of clean water the way I am savoring my coffee right now.  I am a lifeless mineral glob without my Java.

Water plus carbon and a few other minerals makes us.  To give anything life, to keep anything alive it must have water. Someone came up with a way for cars to run on water.  Who would interfere with that technology and why, someone devilish?

Water is so life giving that I think maybe God is water and we are drilling for –> well,  you get my point?

Here on the sunny beaches of Florida where I sit, gazing out at pristine Gulf Beaches and blue waters, one would never suspect that a black, cancer lurks over the blue horizon.

My beach is preparing this Memorial Day for festivities on the beach. There is a bandstand, vendors booths and a planned midnight fireworks display that occurs right off my front balcony. There is no sign of disaster.

All is quiet like in the hours before Pearl Harbor. People are sunning on the beach, the sky is perfectly blue with a few wisps of white cloud. The sea is like a lake.

You will forgive me for believing as I do, that in this moment all is well on the Gulf.

As proof of this well being, as I write, I see brown pelicans flying in formation. If you have seen brown pelicans fly you will know that they fly on wind currents with military precision. With skill surpassing any human pilot, they perform death defying dives, with bombing accuracy, nose first into the sea.

I bet I can count six species of plover, heron, egret, and terns right now without getting out of my seat.

So what was that about cancer lurking out there? Is it a mirage?

I am afraid not. The signs are everywhere. The local health food store is collecting supplies for the Bird Sanctuary. It seems that Dawn washing liquid cleans fouled feathers. The call is out for human and animal hair donations. Did you know that hair clippings soak up oil?

What is not being handed out, is respirators. Thats just a fancy word for gas masks.

You see up in Louisiana, a few hundred miles from where I sit, the biggest ecological disaster in history…. I am sorry, let me rephrase that, THE BIGGEST ECOLOGICAL DISASTER IN HISTORY, IS IN FULL FORCE AND EFFECT.

BP, the British Petroleum Corporation that is responsible for this disaster, is as deep into loss control as the fragile coastal breeding grounds of Louisiana are into death.

That’s right folks. They are dead. They can never come back. Well never may be too strong a word. Lets just say when my kids have children, my grand kids will not see life there.

You see it has taken a millennium for the brush to seed and grow in the salty coastal marshes to the point that there are huge “prairies” of salt tolerant plants. The roots of this brush are mangroves, an endangered bush whose roots hang in the water like the tendrils of fire works on the Fourth of July.  They are safe refuge for small critters (a nursery for fish), and they harbor spawning fish, crabs, shell fish, oysters, and plankton. They are the nesting ground for many endangered fowl, from pelicans to eagles.

It is the cradle of life for the entire Gulf and beyond into the Atlantic Ocean.  This is Gods incubator for the seas.  (Gods incubator is covered in oil).

BP figures that if the word gets out how toxic this mess is, then BP will be facing potential lawsuits for years to come!  So along comes BP’s coporporate liability limit men in their $1000.00 suits.

They have determined that if anyone is seen wearing a gas mask at work while cleaning the spill, that will prove that the workers are working in a highly toxic, cancer causing, environment.  BP needs to create the appearance that everything is fine and safe and that working waist deep in oil sludge and gasoline fumes is just hunky dory.  Its no worse than sunscreen and a day on the beach.

Today, BP is still pumping millions of gallons of poison on top of millions of gallons of toxic crude oil into the Gulf.

I sit here on the beach and weep for the sea turtles and the dolphins and the whales, and I wait for tonight’s fireworks on the beach.

Sincerely

Jeffrey Solomon

PS: here is a video you may want to view  http://www.brassche cktv.com/ page/852. html

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

My latest letter to the White House…

I campaigned for President Obama.  I am an advocate of alternative energy. I don’t own any stocks so some may consider me ignorant to the ways of power and money.

I am asking that President Obama use the power of the United States government to keep this oil from destroying any more of our fragile gulf ecosystem.  I am greatly disenchanted with this oil spill and how it is being handled.  I feel that not enough was done or is being done.

There is too much concern regarding future litigation; present cost is guiding decisions to control this oil spill.  What is the dispersant?  Why aren’t we demanding to know what they are using?  Politicians aren’t talking about it.

Politicians are politicians because somewhere along the line some oil money got them there.  Every politician in office today is there because of oil money. (and coal money).  I dare you to prove me wrong.

Yes, I’m angry, very very angry.

Give me my faith back in this administration and provide some results to Americans that we are truly proud and powerful to do what is right.  Not just bumbling through other countries with destructive power.
Please keep this place clean for those who will come after we are gone.

Do you find that every day niceties are disappearing?  Kindness is interpreted as weakness?  A neurosurgeon I worked with asked me one day if a chair was taken.  “Is it ok if I sit here?”  I told him he was at the top of the food chain and he could sit anywhere he wanted.  We both gave a short chuckle and went on with our day.  That moment stayed in my mind.   He is an example of many memorable encounters with kind people who inspire me to be as they are.  I’m still working on it.

Politeness is different.  Some people can be caustically polite.  You’ve met them, the soft spoken smiling face that gossips with tact.  Kind people are aware of others while grocery shopping, moving aside, or yielding to the product search of a fellow shopper.  They don’t always wave or smile so they can be hard to discover sometimes, but, what a beautiful world this would be if we would all learn from them.

Kind people don’t do things out a sense of reward, they are just innately so.  I think we should celebrate kindness rather than war and death and sacrifice.

I hate self check out lanes with every thing I’m made of.  That is a job that someone doesn’t have because you are checking your own stuff out.  The automated cashier is telling me to have a nice day?  That is bullshit –> which is a phrase I have used while walking out the door without buying my cart full of stuff.

A large home supplies store recently had four self checking lanes open and one cocky employee announcing to all of us customers floundering at the self checkouts. “I got it all under control baby”  I asked miss “control baby” if someone was sent home early, and wages were lost because of those self checking lanes.  She pretended to be too busy to answer my question.

While touring Oregon, I noticed that every gas station had an attendant to pump your gas for you and the gas didn’t cost more.  It was to keep people working.  Did you know that at one time it was unheard of to pump your own gas?  How long will it be before people find out that at one time it was unheard of to check out your own stuff.  Maybe we’ll think about it while sitting in unemployment lines.  We’ll have automated nurses, police and loan officers.

Did you know that Monsanto (the same company that brought us agent orange) together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer controls almost all agriculture in the World?  They are like drug suppliers except they are in the seed business.  Ever wonder why the fruits and vegetables at grocery stores are so big and plump and colorful compared to the fruits and veggies at farmers markets?  Monsanto adds stuff, pesticides and they have created hybrid seeds that the farmers have to buy.  They have a contract. Small farmers have been successfully sued by Monsanto when they violate any terms of the contract.  Drug suppliers send out heavies that break your arms and Monsanto sends out heavies in the form of lawyers that break your family.

Independently owned farms are actually corporate farms as long as they use Monsanto seeds.  This is a fact of life in the US and we have grown accustomed to our giant red and yellow produce. Literature tells us to eat colorful food to be healthy.  Many Americans are wising up and going to farmers markets and food co-ops to avoid the pesticides and antibiotics and fungicides like Thiram that are added to Monsanto seeds to make stuff look better.  We have hospitals full of antibiotic resistant diseases and cancer.  Do you think there is any relation?

I had my own garden many years ago when I was pregnant with my son.  We had the good fortune of renting a little Wisconsin farmette that had been abandoned for many years after the owners died.  We washed the house and painted it.  We took the 10 year old cow crap that was in the barn and put a little clump at the bottom of every hole and put seeds and starter plants in the bottom.  It was a small town and people took pride in their gardens.  This garden was my first and my neighbors were full of wonderful advice.  I wrapped my tomato plants with newspaper to prevent pests, I picked off the little sucker growths, and I planted as they advised to make sure the tallness of the corn didn’t block out the sunlight to the lower plants.  We had a pear tree, an apple tree, and a concord grape vine.

Ken (my husband at the time) shot deer and traded the meat for pork and beef.  He fixed an old wringer washer he found somewhere on the farmette and I washed our clothes with that thing.  We heated with the wood he cut up from old dead trees on our property and our neighbors properties.  We had to open a window in the dead of winter sometimes to cool the place off.  It stayed toasty warm with that wood burning stove.  I felt like Harriet Homesteader, but, I wish I still had that old wringer washer it was the coolest ever.

yep it looked just like this

and our stove was very similar to this

OK, back on subject…

I had a basement full of potatoes, giant red tomatos, squash, peppers, melon and everything was huge and colorful.  My take on all of this is we buy the cow poop from organic ranchers and pay Wisconsin farm wives to teach us how to grow stuff.   Then we won’t need seeds with scary additives.

Meantime, I was reading an article in “Yes” magazine…

Monsanto has donated to Haiti some of their hybrid corn seeds.  These seeds are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram. [ The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them. The EPA also ruled that pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, based on the assumption that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing. Dress like an astronaut to do your gardening?

Vía Campesina, the world’s largest confederation of farmers with member organizations in more than 60 countries, has called Monsanto one of the “principal enemies of peasant sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty for all peoples.” [In the United States –>The Center for Food Safety has led a four-year legal challenge against Monsanto that has just made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. After successful litigation against Monsanto and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for illegal promotion of Roundup Ready Alfalfa, the court heard the Center for Food Safety’s case on April 27. A decision on this first-ever Supreme Court case about GMOs is now pending. [14]

Go to

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/beverly-bell-in-haiti/haitian-farmers-refuse-monsanto-hybrid-seeds

and

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/food-rebellions-7-steps-to-solving-the-food-crisis

if you’d like to read the entire article and others like it.