Turning Away

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” -Mark Twain

My initial reaction to the news may resemble Twain's sentiment. That first feeling was followed by some guilt and self-examination of the prospect of being glad to learn of Bin Laden's death. I could rationalize my response as a feeling of relief, a recognition of some measure of future violence removed from the world, or perhaps a satisfaction in justice being served. But those are all secondary responses, and each related concept brings a world of complexity and moral grey terrain.

As a kid I used to climb the cliffs at the edge of my town and gaze out across the low plain that leads up to New York City. Hours of staring at the that skyline and wondering about its inhabitants etched the view into my mind indelibly. I've stood at the top of the towers with my grandparents, marveling at the panorama, feeling tiny in that ocean of people below.

Watching those towers fall on a tiny laptop computer screen, surrounded by speechless colleagues, I could only imagine the horror of the people trapped within. I felt a piece of myself falling with them, still standing on that observation deck with my grandparents, tumbling into a twisted broken darkness.

Blame is always a complicated thing, and ten years of war, politics, and mass-media frenzy has left us standing in a very strange place. I still feel myself standing on that cliff, looking at the skyline, with its gaping hole. I can hear the cheers now, and I have no urge to join them or chide them. All I really want to do now is turn and walk away.

Afterglow

I found profound contentment in washing a kitchen full of dishes, alone in the waning hours of this evening. The music of Melody Gardot and Van Morrsion drifted in from the living room, as sudsy warm water poured over my hands, and I grinned in recollection of a night well-spent. Winter, you've got nothing that a kick-ass pananag curry, a good bottle of wine, and great company can't melt away.

The Convenience of Proximity

There are days when all I want to do after work is plop down on the couch, watch a favorite TV show and eat whatever is convenient. In the past that has usually been pizza or some other fast food, but when you have two huge rib chops from The Piggery lurking temptingly in your fridge and a yard full of fresh garden produce beckoning right outside your back door, convenient can take on a different meaning.

So tonight after coming home, somewhat withered from a relentless heat wave, we treated ourselves to those amazing chops, grilled and slathered in Dinosaur BBQ sauce, paired with roast apples, and accompanied by a garden sald of green-leaf lettuce and sugar snap peas with roast onion and mushrooms. I couldn't have felt more satisfied after, kicking my feet up and watching an episode of Lie to Me with Charlotte. I could definitely get used to this.

Independence Day

This 4th of July had me thinking on what I value most about living in America, and high on that list is the opportunity I've had to lead a self-determined life. I realize that opportunity is not distributed evenly in this country (nor anywhere else), but I won't pretend to resent that I do have it. Of all the choices I have the luxury of making, I believe that those I make about what I eat have some of the most regular and profound effects on my health and well-being and that of the community and environment in which I live.

Planting and nurturing a garden, watching it grow, and learning how to feed myself has become such a rewarding experience. Discovering the intricate connections between the living soil, the plants, pests, and beneficial organisms makes me feel aware of and connected to the natural world in a very fundamental way. Choosing what I grow grants me a huge variety of options for my culinary adventures; ones that are free of pesticide residue, fresher, and more nutritious than anything grown thousands of miles away. Obviously it also consumes a lot less energy.

Purchasing a significant portion of my food from local sources has also become a very fulfilling experience. I'm not a vegetarian, but I do want the animals that provide me with food to be treated as humanely as possible. Knowing the people that raise these animals (even becoming friends with some), I can see that they care deeply about the entire process of animal husbandry, and approach it with thoughtfulness, respect, ingenuity and care. The fact that the food they produce is safer, more nutritious, and tastier goes without saying.

I am very happy to support the local food economy, as I feel that doing so increases the health, security, and prosperity of Ithaca and the surrounding region. It supports the livelihood of people I care about, and helps to foster a robust local food web, which will become essential as energy prices inevitably rise.

With all of this in mind, we celebrated Independence Day with local food.

Breakfast was a delicious combination of scrambled eggs from Daring Drake Farms, bacon from The Piggery, and freshly-picked black raspberries.

For lunch, we enjoyed one of The Piggery's new items: hot dogs! They were perfect for the occasion, and accompanied by a fresh-picked garden salad with merlot lettuce, arugula, and snap peas, toped in a lemon-balsamic vinaigrette with basil and cilantro. Fresh-squeezed lemonade washed it down perfectly.

Dinner was a savory combination of Autumn Harvest Farms chicken roasted with fresh garden herbs (rosemary, tarragon, sage, and basil) and another wonderful garden salad. Choice never tasted so good.

In the Thicket of It

Our black raspberry thicket is peaking right about now. We've already harvested about two quarts of berries, and expect at least that much more. I've been browsing them by the handful for breakfast, munching on them as I wander around the garden before getting ready for work.

Fresh black raspberries make a perfect summer dessert all on their own, but you haven't lived until you've tried black raspberry crumble. If I get a chance while the bushes are still bearing, I'm also going to try my hand at black raspberry ice cream.

There's No Place Like Home

We're back home again after a very entertaining weekend in Boston. We celebrated a good friend's 30th birthday in style: ballooning over the verdant hills of Vermont at sunset on Friday, chasing people around with squirt guns in Harvard square as part of an elaborate and hilarious scavenger hunt Saturday morning, riding horses through the woods at a local ranch in the afternoon, and wrapping up with a huge party and pig roast that evening. What a whirlwind!

Sunday was more relaxed, spent lounging among the good company of friends, wandering through shops in Cambridge, and enjoying a tasty dinner at East Coast Grill & Raw Bar. We drove back on Monday, headed over to Northstar for Jamaican night, then returned home for a much-needed quiet evening on the couch.

It's always comforting to return home after a trip, and for me it's also exciting, because I get to see just how much the garden has grown in my absence. It did very well in the four days we were gone. Infused by an inch of rain over the weekend, basil has bounded upward, peas have burgeoned from their flowers, beans have wound up trellises, squash leaves have fanned out like umbrellas, and green tomatoes have fattened up almost as much as I did in the gastronomical revelry of the past four days.

With a beautiful balmy evening as a backdrop, we prepared a delicious summer meal anchored by Brad's (of Piggery fame) pulled pork. An easy walk through the garden produced a variety of vegetables to sauté and compliment the pork: salad turnips and turnip greens, radishes, garlic scapes, and snow peas, mixed with young garlic, onion, and basil. Braised shredded cabbage leaves with apples and pomegranate rounded out the meal. It's good to be home!

14th Anniversary Breakfast

So this weekend was our 14th wedding anniversary! Breakfast included delicious fresh scrambled duck eggs from Daring Drake Farm, mouth-watering crispy bacon from The Piggery, and freshly-picked strawberries from Red Jacket Orchards.

Duck eggs are are similar in flavor and texture to chicken eggs, though they are a bit more rich. The richness especially lends itself to scrambled eggs, in that you don't need to add any milk or cream.

The bacon was part of our weekly CSA share with The Piggery. The share also contained two amazing pork rib chops, which we grilled out at Taughannock Falls State Park earlier this week. We forgot BBQ sauce and herbs for our picnic, but those chops, simply grilled and browned in their own fat, were amazingly juicy and flavorful. I'd dare say they were the best pork chops I've ever tasted.

The strawberries were part of our fruit CSA share through The Full Plate Farm Collective. We received two perfectly ripe quarts of them, plus some fresh rhubarb in this week's share.

The bananas were obviously not so local, though we did plant two paw-paw trees earlier this spring. Paw paws are sort of like a banana that can grow in northern climates.

More on Paw Paws from Wikipedia:

"The fruit is a large edible berry, 5–16 cm long and 3–7 cm broad, weighing from 20–500g, with numerous seeds; it is green when unripe, maturing to yellow or brown. It has a flavor somewhat similar to both banana and mango, varying significantly by cultivar, and has more protein than most fruits."

The Unfair Season

It's hot, like a snot in my nose, or a hose in the sun, it's no fun. 

Blazing orb, circles higher, bakes the ground, ceaseless fire.

Lumber we, through the haze, spirits dampened, in a daze.

Afternoon, cicadas sing, tiny heralds, sun, their king.

We just cower in the shade, humble vassals August made.

Fiery dusk, distant drums, cruel deception, no rain comes.

In the dark no dogs bark, howl they can't as they pant.

And I toss in my bed, sleep elusive, fevered head. 

Dreams of autumn, chilling breezes, frost once cursed, now she pleases.

Fickle things, my desires, cold when heat, ice when fires.

So for now I'll abide, knowing preference shifts like tide,

in a season when the air is quite anything but fair.

A Bit of Shouting About My Wet Feet

A friend of mine recently found me on Facebook and was somewhat surprised to see me label myself as "liberal". Being someone who generally despises being labeled in any way, here's a bit of expansion on that theme:

In terms of civil liberty, I'm technically on the libertarian side, meaning government should have little or no role in saying what consenting adults can do to/with each other. Therefore, my opinions in this area may qualify as "liberal" but may not resemble the liberal status quo. For example, I don't think the government has ANY worthwhile role in conducting or certifying marriages, of ANY type. However, if they are going to be involved in any type, they shouldn't be discriminating, in any way.

In relation to that thought, I think religion, in any form, needs to be kept far away from government policy. Some of us don't even believe in god, so it's pretty alarming when believers start to try to legislate their nonsecular morality on us. I believe secular humanism provides a pretty good framework for how people should treat each other, without getting god involved.

In terms of the environment, I fall soundly on the green side of things. Government has to protect natural resources because it is rarely in any individual's apparent short-term interest to do so. I happen to believe in protecting species, ecosystems, and environments for their own sake, but I don't think one needs to hold such views to support environmental protection. We're living in a closed system with finite resources, and preemptive protective legislation is a whole lot more desirable than massive population crashes (i.e. nature's way).

As for fiscal policy, I think we have been and are spending way to much money on just about everything. You have to balance budgets, sooner than later in my opinion, or you're just handing all of the problems to your children. This doesn't mean I'm a libertarian. It just means I don't want to bankrupt the country, collapse our currency, or create hyper-inflation. If you're going to have a government funded program, it needs to be FUNDED.

In terms of fiscal priority, I feel the welfare of the individual is much more important than that of the corporation. Corporations shouldn't have rights like individuals, and they should play absolutely no financial role in influencing policy decisions. I believe we should spend less money on killing people, and more money on helping them. Yeah, I think my hair is longer than it used to be.

I think that capitalism needs serious checks and balances the same way government does, or you get a series of rather dramatic financial bubbles, which tend to screw over the little guy, ultimately. Thoughtful regulation would work, with the emphasis on thoughtful. Throwing money at problems accompanied by knee-jerk grandstanding on CSPAN isn't doing anyone any good, regardless of the side of the aisle the bullshit is flying from.

I think that in the end, the most valuable role government can play is one that encourages the highest quality secular education for as many people as possible. It's a big world, with way too many of us, and the problems we're going face are enormous and complex. I want individuals who can think trying to navigate around these problems, instead of people who can shout in reaction to them while the ship is already sinking.


P.S. I've gone back and changed my political views to "complicated".

I Have a Scar or Two

In the spirit of one of my favorite scenes in "Jaws", a listing of my significant scars, and how they happened:

1. Under my chin. Age five. Split it open on Thanksgiving day, after taking a swan dive off of the coat pile on my parent's bed. 14 stitches, no novacaine. The term "papoose board" still makes me wince.

2. Right shin. Age ten. Fell on a bowhead garden rake hidden in the grass while playing wiffle ball, creating two deep puncture wounds. Six stitches in each puncture.

3. Left foot's second toe. Age Twelve. Accidentally dropped a 25-pound weight plate on my foot, smashing the toe. No doctor. The toe still looks a little...odd.

4. Left eardrum. Age thirteen. Severe perforation due to an unlikely combination of a beetle, bridge jumping, and an inevitable abscess. Wost pain in my life, by far, until they gave me morphine. If you're wondering why I keep asking you to repeat yourself when we're in a noisy room, now you know.

5. Right cheek and forehead. Chicken pox. Don't scratch them, really!

6. Left wrist. Age 21. No matter how drunk you are and how annoying the sorority girls may be, I still advise against putting your clove cigarette out on your wrist after they tell you it smells bad.


What about yours?

Impressions of Today

Sitting alone in my office, watching the initial inaugural coverage on CNN's website, I am awestruck by the size of the crowd in D.C., and wishing I was there.

Walking past Cornell's McGraw tower precisely at noon, hearing the bells chime the hour more loudly and clearly than I've ever heard before, I become acutely aware of the moment of transition from an administration I am completely ashamed of to one that I am very hopeful about.

Listening to Obama's inaugural address in the car in a downtown parking garage, I gaze outward at a sea of fluffy white snowflakes drifting down from the frigid gray sky, as as he quotes George Washington: "Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it."

Eating lunch in my favorite local bar, packed with smiling people who have come in from the cold to watch the inaugural coverage, I can't help but laugh as they shout and applaud uproariously when the television screens show Bush flying away from the White House in a helicopter.

I am feeling like I am home again, after being away for far too long.

Is it a dream?

I think he's done it...somebody pinch me.

Please Vote

Charlotte and I got up at 6am to head over to our polling place and vote. Even at that very early hour, there were 20-40 people there, which is a very positive thing in my eyes. We were in and out in 10 minutes, and the people we ran into seemed happy and optimistic about the election.

I'm spending some time today calling voters in Pennsylvania and encouraging them to vote. The Obama campaign site makes it really easy to do, and so far it's been relatively painless, and even somewhat reaffirming.

Please get out and vote today!

Think about it.

Thanks to John for this link to a very worthy interview with Bill Moyers on Democracy Now.

It is so very frustrating that the media has focused almost exclusively on the horse race instead of the issues. Frustrating, but not at all surprising.

I've grown so tired of the entire "electability" debate. Why is having thoughtful ideals and being an articulate thinker a negative? Conversely, why is having the support of the uneducated voter somehow better than the support of the intellectuals?

After nearly eight years of an administration that consistently "thinks with its gut" and has provided nothing but short-sighted, ignorant, and outright self-serving policy decisions, isn't it time to start leading with our brains?

I am not saying that uneducated voters are unimportant. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think what we need in a leader is someone who can thoughtfully and skillfully encourage intelligent policy that benefits everyone. Someone who can articulate the complexity of the problems facing this republic of 300+ million to all demographics, and not merely pander to the working class like some kind of 17th century colonialist with a pouch of shiny glass beads.

I happen to think that Barack Obama is the best candidate for that job at this point, and that his biggest shortfall thus far has been that he and his campaign haven't taken enough time to expound on his thoughts about the direction that this country needs. Just about every time the man does speak at length on a topic, I gain more respect for his understanding of complex issues and his ability to articulate that understanding to anyone willing to listen.

We need to stop playing into the hands of those that want politics to remain nothing more than a flim-flam diversion of black and white, full of 30-second soundbites, delivered by polished automatons who answer to nothing but the almighty dollar and their own enormous egos. We need to have the bravery to address problems that can't be solved in a day, a month, or an election cycle, and the discipline to craft thoughtful, inclusive, and flexible solutions that won't fit on a fucking bumper sticker.

I want a high-thinker for that job, not a car salesperson.

Fall

Swirling, churning, a blustery burning, it whirls into the indolently ebbing summer to remind me of the meaning of time. Swelling the landscape with a wave of color, frosting the grass with a bitter suggestion that the party might soon be over, it nips my cheeks with chilly lips as I gather myself within a coat that embraces me like an old friend. The marina sits empty now, long weathered creaky docks calling stalwart seagulls to their tall dark pilings, to await an onslaught of ice. I walk through the wind among these patient sentries, gazing out at the lake, darkened like a winter sky, as distant rolling white-capped waves beckon me like sirens.

Kate & Terry's Wedding Pics

I've finally uploaded my pictures of Kate and Terry's Wedding. Enjoy!

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

I read "Covenant of the Wild" last night, and found parts interesting (in between some maddening inferences, and his apparent animosity towards the animal rights movement). I did agree with the premise that life and nature are a constantly changing, adaptable, and complex system, full of organisms that are as brutal as they are beautiful; as opposed to the more traditional view of nature as fixed pantheon of noble creatures.

I also found his views on the formation and spread of agrarian culture to be thought-provoking, and in line with my recent thoughts on the human propensity to create ever-more-efficient means of fueling their burgeoning numbers, regardless of the impact on the very system that allows their existence. The thing is, it really is a very simple set of characteristics that drive all life to expand and fill every possible niche, and humans are no different than any other organism in these fundamental motivations and actions. Life will continue to evolve and adapt around us, regardless of what we do, and in many cases, because of what we do. The question is, what will become of us?

With each "leap" we have taken; agrarian, industrial, electronic; humans have increased the apparent carrying capacity of the planet for their species. The cost of these revolutions is that we have also increased the velocity and certainty of our path towards a catastrophic depletion of the resources and ecosystem that we rely upon. I often wonder just how and when we will crash as a species; just how many revolutions do we have left before we hit the ground? Maybe we'll miss the ground altogether, for now. Perhaps an inevitable revolution in our line of "progress" (if we make it so far) will be for humans to become an interplanetary or even interstellar life form.

We could spread out across worlds and even solar systems, filling every habitable space and creating many of our own along the way. Would such progress really save us though, or just increase the scope of the impending catastrophe? I'm leaning towards the latter, with what our history shows us thus far. Can we as a species really have any hope of railing against the very instincts that have cultivated our existence? I am doubtful. I think it's more likely that we will continue to use every resource available to grow our numbers, until there is nothing left for us to consume, and no place new for us to expand into.

Perhaps that is the point, though. In the end maybe we are no more than an interstellar slingshot for life; a fire that flares across worlds, but brings seeds on its scorching wind and leaves them behind on fertile ground, to bloom and grow long after it has burned out. Perhaps life is using us just as much as we are using it. "Covenant of the Wild" definitely struck that chord with me.

We will take life just as far as we can, and then it will proceed along without us, ever adapting, evolving, and spreading. It will tip its hat and thank us for the ride, or as a better writer than me once said, "so long, and thanks for all the fish."

If I cried out, who among the angels would hear my voice?

This morning as I rode on the bus in to work, I was reminded of one of the more compelling reasons why I love this town. To my left, a gentleman intently reading a scientific paper titled, "Functional Pattern Analysis: Predicting the Evolution of Complex Organized Networks." To my right, a fellow perusing an anthology of poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke. Behind me, a lively discussion between a man and a woman about the annealing process in snowflake formation. In front of me, a crowd of faces hinting of Asian, European, African, and Latin origins, all bundled in their assorted winter armor, dusted in a layer of new and infinitely variable snowflakes.

Winter's Vacation

What do you do on a beautiful, sunny, 60-degree day in January in Ithaca?

1) Check to see if you're dreaming.
2) Realize it doesn't matter if you are.
3) Go play in it!
4) Capture it.


I hope you enjoy my attempt at #4

Fall Pictures

I was out this evening with my camera, and managed to take advantage of some beautiful light.

I hope you enjoy the results.