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  • sunvapor:

    What the fucks happening in Ferguson?

    solarbird:

    clehmentine:

    Alright, i’m gonna sit down and basically explain the situation in this ask so everyone of my followers knows why i’m so pissed.

    Michael Brown, a 17 – 18 year old african american boy was unlawfully shot (8-10 times supposedly) by police in St Louis, Missouri on saturday, august 9th, 2014. He was unarmed, and had done nothing to attract suspicion other than the fact that he was black. His body was left in the street for 4 hours. (beware: somewhat graphic image linked)

    There are several claims from witnesses (see: Dorian Johnson’s account and video [HIGHLY RECOMMEND READING UP ON HIS ACCOUNT, ITS VERY SPECIFIC] — Brown’s friend who experienced the situation first hand, La’Toya Cash and Phillip Walker— Ferguson residents nearby the incident),  that fall together in generally close claims. However, the only one who’s claim seems out of place is the police officer’s who shot Brown. Who, by the way, is put off on paid administrative leave AND who’s name remained under anonymity for his safety (However, attorney Benjamin Crump is looking for a way to force release his name). He claims that Brown began to wrestle the officer for his gun and tried attacking him after he told Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson (22) to “get the f*ck on the sidewalk”.

    According to Johnson, after a minor confrontation on the officer’s part where he grabbed Brown by the neck and then by the shirt, the officer pulled his gun on Brown and shot him at point blank range on the right side of his body. Brown and Johnson were able to get away briefly and started running. However, Brown was shot in the back, supposedly disabling him from getting very far. He turned around with his arms in the air and said “I don’t have a gun, stop shooting!” By this point, Brown and the officer were face to face as the cop shot him several times in the face and chest until he was finally dead. Johnson ran to his apartment and by the sound of his account, seemingly had some sort of panic attack. Later he emerged from his home to see Brown still laying in the streets. People were gathered with their cellphones, screaming at the police.

    According to msnbc, the police refuse to interview Johnson at all, despite his amazing courage to come forward. They didn’t wanna hear it. They only listened to the cop’s account of it all and were vague with the media on what they thought happened. They’ve also refused to commit to a timeline in releasing autopsy results and other investigation information.

    Numerous rumors are sweeping around such as Brown stealing candy from a QuickTrip, the store he emerged from calling the cops on him, Brown reaching for a gun, Brown attacking the cop first, ect. But these have all been debunked. (I know a lot of these have been debunked, but im having a hard time finding sources. if anyone could help out and link some legit ones id be SO grateful)

    The event in and of itself was terrible, but now it has escalated beyond belief. Around 100 or more people, mostly black, went to the police station to protest peacefully. Things quickly turned bad as martial law got involved and authorities were bringing in K9s, tanks, heavy artillery, ect. The heavy police presence only made things worse as riots began to break out and looting and vandalism started. [ x ] [ x ] [ x ]

    Now, as of very recently, the media has been banned from Ferguson. There is also a No-Fly zone above Ferguson for the reason of “ TO PROVIDE A SAFE ENVIRONMENT FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITIES ” as said on the Federal Aviation Commission’s website. Cop cars are lined up on the borders to prevent people from entering/leaving. Media outlets are being threatened with arrest. It completely violates our amendments and everything.

    It’s becoming increasingly scary and difficult to find out whats going on over there. I’m afraid this is all the information I have, though. If anybody else knows anything about the situation, please feel free to add on or correct any mistakes i’ve made as i’m no expert on writing these things.

    And as a personal favor, i’d really appreciate anyone to give this a reblog in order to spread the word. I think it’s a shame that this is going on in our own country yet so few people know about it. Help me make this topic huge and get this as much attention as possible.

    They’ve been arresting and teargassing media, specifically; Jezebel has pictures of the tear gassing of one media group, and there are many photos of media arrests. The police have also been detaining and/or arresting local politicians and in one case a St. Louis (non-local) Alderman for the crime of “being there.” The #Ferguson tag on twitter is on fire and currently useful.

  • Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

    Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

    Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

    Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

    Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

    Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

    Anecdotes by medical practitioners

    “A woman came in for a baby check with her 6-month-old and she had what looked like chocolate milk in the baby’s bottle. So he started explaining to her as kindly as he could that she shouldn’t be giving her baby chocolate milk. At which point she interrupts him and says, ‘Oh that isn’t chocolate milk. It’s coffee! He just loves it!”

    “I had a patient come in for an STD check. She was very upset and continued to tell me that she only had one partner. Progressing through my assessment, she further divulged that even if he was sleeping with other people it shouldn’t matter ‘because he uses a condom every time and he makes sure to wash it thoroughly after every use’.”

    “Had a lady who measured her baby’s temperature by pre-heating the oven and putting one hand in front of it while the other hand was on the baby’s forehead. She told the nurse her baby’s fever was about 250 degrees.”

    “Lady has to have foot amputated and is given waiver forms to sign pre-op. Buddy asks if she needs time to think about it. She’s very nonchalant and doesn’t seem to care much what they do. He gets suspicious and probes a bit as to why she’s not more concerned. She says she gets that they have to operate and it’s OK because the foot will grow back.”

    “I had a couple who had been trying to conceive for over two years. I asked all the usual questions, how often do you have sex, any previous pregnancy, etc etc. Something seemed off to me during the consult, so I continued to ask questions. Finally I asked if he ejaculated while inserted into the vagina. Both parties looked confused.Turns out the couple was not having insertional sex at all. I had to awkwardly explain to them how insertional sex works. Diagrams were required.”

    “Patient comes in, she’s upset. She’s pregnant, and she doesn’t understand why. She’s on the pill. Upon talking to her at great length, I find out that she only takes the pills on the days that she is sexually active – no other time.”

    “Patient comes in with her bf. They are indignant, as if somehow I could’ve prevented [the pregnancy]. The problem? Well, the pills were bothering the girl’s stomach, so, being a gallant bf, he decided to start taking them instead.”

    “I was explaining the treatment to the husband of a patient about to be discharged. He kept nodding and agreeing with me, but I knew it was flying over his head. Turned out a fundamental problem was that I was describing the drugs as ‘tablets’ and he had no clue what those were.”

    Reddit thread 

    None of these surprise me. It’s really sad and I get very frustrated by it, and I weep for humanity as I work, but really, the main problem a lot of people attend the ED with is:

    “What is this thing my consciousness inhabits, I don’t understand it, and it’s doing a thing”.

    Sometimes I sit in triage with my stethoscope, and my dynamap and my xray access and the two things I require most are a magic wand and a children’s book about human biology.

  • Quinoa may deliver a complete protein—all of the amino acids you require—in a compact package, but rice and beans together actually do better. And like goji berries, blueberries and strawberries are packed with phytochemicals. The only problem is that lacking an exotic back story, food marketers can’t wring as exorbitant a markup from these staples: The domestic blueberry, for example, is periodically (and justifiably) marketed as a superfood, and in 2012, products featuring blueberries as a primary ingredient saw their sales nearly quadruple. But they only raked in $3.5 million—less than 2 percent of açaí-based product sales.

    Tom Philpott, “Are Quinoa, Chia Seeds, and other ‘Superfoods’ a Scam?” (from Mother Jones)

    Also worth highlighting is this section:

    “Worse than superfoods’ origin myths, though, are their effects on the people in their native regions. In 2009, at the height of the açaí berry hype, Bloomberg News reported that the fruit’s wholesale price had jumped 60-fold since the early 2000s, pricing the Amazonian villagers who rely on it out of the market. In the Andes, where quinoa has been cultivated since the time of the Incas, price spikes have turned a one-time staple into a luxury, and quinoa monocrops are crowding out the more sustainable traditional methods.” (emphasis mine)

    So not only are the markets for “superfoods” putting the foods out of reach of the people who relied on them as a dietary staple, but there are foods easily accessible to us that deliver all the nutrition at a fraction of the cost, both to our grocery bill and to the social/environmental toll.

    (via elenilote)

    Kathryn’s currently reading Dan Barber’s The Third Plate – and occasionally shares sections or insights from it with me (first up she shared Dan Barber’s problematic relationship with women – managing to erase women entirely from a meeting, but skipping over that for the moment…). And it broadly turns out tat the whole way we produce food is basically wrong.

    I mean, we’ve known this for ages – with our attempt to eat local and grow our own (badly). We’ve gone from supermarket lots of precooked stuff -> supermarket individual item based cooking -> shopping on the high street individual item -> roughly local & in season veg bought from specific greengrocer.

    And actually, the reason we switched from the supermarket to the high street was price. It was cheaper to go to the greengrocer, and we felt better about ourselves doing it. We have a good relationship with our greengrocer, cheesemonger, and even to some extent the wholefoods store (they’ve not got the greatest manner with customers).

    But a side effect of that has been that we’ve become much more aware of where stuff is from. In the supermarket you’re disconnected from the foods. They’re often in packages, wrapped in plastic and you kind of poke at them through the box or bag to try and work out what sort of state they’re in.

    Our local green grocer occasionally has prepack stuff, beans particularly which are almost invariably from Kenya or some such ridiculous place. But almost everything else is at worst European, and at best within Bristol. Most weeks you could shop-and-eat healthily without leaving the confines of the city, buying solely organic produce.

    And just occasionally they carry heritage varieties. Mainly what we grow are heritage varieties. The odd F1 creeps in, when we spot something randomly interesting, but for the most part we’re fans of the veg of the 18 and 1900s. This stuff all tastes INSANE. Seriously, the tomatoes are amazing, the potatoes are incredible. It’s like someone’s turned the flavour up to, well, I’d say 11, but it’s more like 30.

    (Incidentally, we get our seeds from The Real Seed Company and Thomas Etty Esq, in the main. Everyone, and I mean literally everyone we’ve given seed to has been amazed by the quality of the veg produced and how healthy the plants grown from seed are from these companies. Our lack of success is entirely due to our lackadaisical approach to gardening which mostly amounts to: we planted the seeds it should do the rest).

    Anyhow, this is all by-the-by; what inspired me to comment was a chunk she read me last night about southern grains. I had no idea that the South of the USA used to be insanely productive with an enormous number of different grains and beans and such, and that they led cooking and also essentially developed a means of taking tired, exhausted soil and turning it into soil that produces phenomenal quality veg. We’d (unsuccessfully, once) tried the Three Sisters method for growing corn/beans/squash, but I’d not realised it was just a tiny part of an enormous system of crop rotation. And that the fundamentals of how we think about growing food are wrong.

    We shouldn’t be growing these one-crop fields. We should be growing multi-crop fields. These crops should support one-another. And I’ve had multiple discussions over the past few years about modern grain differing from our parents and grandparents and great-grandparent’s grain. Basically, why the nutritional value of our food has dropped and dropped. And it turns out that we’re selecting for the wrong things.

    We’re selecting crops that grow well, that produce lots, that produce long-lasting shelf-stable produce and that are fundamentally completely reliable. We’re not selecting for flavours or nutritional content. Proper, real milled wheat? It should be stored in the fridge/freezer, because the natural oils in it make it go rancid quickly otherwise.

    The whole thing has been a slow succession of joining the dots. It’s amazing how slow on the uptake I have been. You can’t just do one bit; if you want decent production and healthy plants, you need to listen to not the books that we’ve got that talk about laying everything out nicely into rows and then smothering them all with all the fertiliser you can lay your hands on, but instead the wisdom of family members who say ‘plant A with B with C and swap them with X, Y and Z, then with Q, S and T’. Proper mixed crop rotation, and the nice old gardening books that say…

    'It has been discovered that some crops help each other'... From Practical Gardening and Food Production

    The bugger of this is that food produced this way is much, much more expensive. It’s labour intensive because you can’t easily mechanise it. Although given the massive levels of unemployment at the moment, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

  • shadesofmauve:

    Seriously considering making a bad phone recording of our completed Black Velvet Band rewrite.

    I suspect my gin n tonix are doing the thinking, here.

    It’s definitely not the Tzjin-anthony-ks – you should totally go for it.

  • asylos:

    Amazon does not pay self published authors royalties. They take a fee for letting you use their storefront. Amazon does not pay you. They take some of your money before handing you over the rest. This may not seem like a big difference, but it is. It’s an even bigger thing when you…

  • idiacanthidae:

    A small Moomin painting in honor of Tove Jansson’s 100th birthday today!! Sometimes you just gotta drop everything and draw a screen full of flowers. It’s good for you.

    —

    photoshop 

    Oh no! I missed Tove Jansson’s birthday :(

    That is terribly sad – I shall have to read / watch some moomins to make up with it…

  • thesupersquirrel:

    pyoorkate:

    rememberwhenyoutried:

    One thing I love about Star Trek: The Motion Picture is that the characters talk up the risk of going to warp speed inside the solar system, and when they do and it turns out the engines haven’t been properly calibrated they fall into a wormhole and nearly destroy the ship. Compare with Star…

    See, that was the thing that disappointed me most about Enterprise. I don’t think I ended up watching all of it, but the bits I did watch they would go “Oh, we’re going to do this technically complicated and risky thing” and lo, it would work.

    And I’d go ‘oh’. And get very bored.

    It did get much better later, but it was pretty awful in the beginning. The first season sucked, and the second was even worse.

    Then they got their act together. While the third season was actually pretty good, the fourth was excellent. It was kind of sad that it was cancelled just after that.

    Ach, maybe I should see if I can endure the first two to make it to 3 and 4. I must admit I’d never realised that it went on so long…

  • rememberwhenyoutried:

    One thing I love about Star Trek: The Motion Picture is that the characters talk up the risk of going to warp speed inside the solar system, and when they do and it turns out the engines haven’t been properly calibrated they fall into a wormhole and nearly destroy the ship. Compare with Star…

    See, that was the thing that disappointed me most about Enterprise. I don’t think I ended up watching all of it, but the bits I did watch they would go “Oh, we’re going to do this technically complicated and risky thing” and lo, it would work.

    And I’d go ‘oh’. And get very bored.

  • General Malaise

    So we got back yesterday after a very nice wedding at which we met lots of new, nice people, and worked our socialising abilities to the max. Neither Kathryn nor I seem terribly big on socialising, and find it pretty hard going, so after the wedding/reception/next day BBQ we were both completely people’d out.

    I very much don’t want to sound ungrateful. I am honoured to have been invited, and it was a pleasure to be there and witness the ceremony, but it reminded me that outside of work, when I don’t have my work-head on, I find peopling pretty damn hard. I don’t have great social skills so trying to maintain small-talk conversations with people I don’t know is quite a challenge.

    Anyhow, so we got back, and today I’m totally in the malaise category of behaviour today. I had vaguely thought about changing the ignition unit in the Austin, but then realised that it wants me to set the timing with the engine running at 1000 rpm. Whilst I have a strobe, mine doesn’t also give me the RPM, sadly (I’ve seen one that does, it ain’t mine). I’ve therefore popped in an order for a 10 quid ebay special laser tachometer*. But that does mean that I can’t do that today.

    I also took my Disclosure and Barring Service (Criminal Records check) to the nursing agency – a quick way to test out the new exhaust I felt, but forgot to take along proof of ID. So I’ll need to send that to them, too. Gah. I mean, the point of the journey was to test the exhaust, so I did achieve that, but could have done with having succeeded in the secondary point.

    I’ve also realised that my cunning plan to do 3 shifts this week has failed because I’ve managed to arrange a variety of other things that need doing too. All of these things, and a headache, are conspiring to not put me in the best of moods. But never mind.

    I have written a little one-year piece for Transport Evolved…

    Anyhow, I should stop whinging and get off my arse. P’raps go and switch the steering wheel for something more traditional.

    * Another tool who’s function will probably diminish rapidly when we get the minor converted.

  • stele3:

    Ferguson Police have dogs and shotguns. The unarmed crowd is raising their hands.

    For anyone not following the Mike Brown story on Twitter: a 17 year old black boy named Mike Brown, who was supposed to start college tomorrow, was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri by police while jaywalking. He was unarmed. He was shot 9 times.

    Initial media reports claimed that an 18 year old black man had been shot and killed while fleeing police after shoplifting.

    People in the neighborhood, including members of Mike Brown’s family, came out of their homes and began to protest, shouting “no justice, no peace,” and keeping their hands in the air.

    Media reports claimed that a violent mob quickly formed around the shooting location shouting “kill the police.”

    Spread this. Tell the truth about what happened to this boy. Tell the truth about what is happening NOW. The police and the mainstream media is painting him as a criminal, and his community as a violent mob.

    SPREAD THIS. Don’t let them lie.