The Hell of the North

The most important bicycle race in the world is the Tour de France, held every year in July. The second most important will be held this Sunday: Paris-Roubaix (say pair-eé roo-báy). To understand just how difficult this one-day race is, all one needs to know is its long-standing monickers: The Hell of the North and A Sunday in Hell.

First run in 1896, Paris-Roubaix averages around 260 kilometers (depending on slight annual variations in the course), or about 161 miles. Paris and Roubaix, France, indicated the original start and end points of the race from 1896 to 1967. Since 1968 the race has started in various French cities but has always ended in the velodrome in Robaix. Regardless of where it starts, the race keeps the traditional name, Paris-Roubaix.

Why "Hell of the North?" Because Roubaix, France, where the race ends, is on the northernmost border of France, right against the France-Belgium border. Belgium is the most fanatical cycling country in Europe and thousands upon thousands of alcohol-fueled Belgians and French line the final miles of the narrow roads making it akin to a gauntlet at a fraternity hazing (all in the historic European spirit of good clean cycling fun, of course). But that's the least of the problems.

Riding 161 miles on a bike under the best of circumstances is bad enough. But 150 riders racing that far on narrow French roads only adds to the danger. The weather is almost always miserable—very cold and very wet. But that's not the worst part of Paris-Roubaix. The worst part are the cobbles.

The race route alternates between tarmac (smooth, paved roads) and very old rural roads still covered with pavé—the traditional, thick paving stones which were originally used to surface the roads. But the pavé are not like smooth, brick-paved streets we might see in America. Many of the cobbles have gaps between them of 1-2 inches on all four sides—not a problem for a car or tractor tire, but absolutely brutal for a very-thin-wheeled racing bike to ride over. Filling the gaps between the cobbles is dirt, not mortar. So when it rains, the dirt turns to mud and the cobbles become extremely slick, resulting in countless crashes and pile-ups during the race. Plus, the bikes have no fenders, so the wheels of every bike flip muddy water into the air with every revolution, soaking every rider with freezing mud in the years it rains. In the coldest wettest years, a large percentage of the riders who begin Paris-Roubaix never make it to the finish line.

Is "Hell of the North" sounding a little more reasonable?

In 2008 there were 28 cobble sections that varied in difficulty and accounted for about one-quarter of the total distance. The cobbled sections are graded according to difficulty, meaning their condition, the following pictures attesting to the variability of the pavé. (Note how narrow the roads are, making for pure bedlam when you combine the bike riders, motorcycle escorts, team support vehicles, official referee vehicles, and the loopy French and Belgian fans crowding in from both sides.)

Following are some views of various conditions of the cobbles along the course:

This is what happens all day long, along with repetitive punctured tires and broken stems and handlebars from the constant pounding:

Here's what the riders can look like (or worse) in the years when it rains:

The winner's trophy is an actual traditional pavé—you can see how deep they are set into the road bed:

The race will be almost over by the time we are well into Sunday, but the Versus network will carry the re-broadcast of the race Sunday evening from 6:00-9:00 pm. Live streaming of the race Sunday morning can be found on numerous Internet sites in your choice of European languages. It is something to behold.

Michael Barry, one of the most experienced riders on the pro circuit, captured the feel of Paris-Roubaix with a helmet cam when his British Sky Team took a training run on the last 100k of the route just yesterday. Here's how he described it on his blog, Le Métier:

Three days prior to the start of Paris Roubaix the team drove to the Arenberg forest to ride the course. From Arenberg it is roughly 100 km to the finish. Each of the 17 remaining cobbled sectors is separated by less than 10 km of tarmac. In Arenberg the race becomes relentlessly difficult—the 100 km that follow the forest are perhaps the hardest 100 km in professional cycling. The vibrations beat the cyclist’s body, his muscles are torn from the effort and his eyes burn from the dust.

The cobbles were relatively dry when we rode them although there were a few muddy sections where puddles had formed or tractors muddied the road. In the video, you can see the riders slipping and sliding on the slick sections. The crowds were already gathering in anticipation for Sunday’s race and the media was out to photograph the protagonists testing their legs and their equipment on the cobbles.

And here's what it looked (and felt) like (the worst part being in the last minute of the video):

Pinarello, the Italian builder who furnishes Team Sky's bikes (seen in the above video), created a version of their new carbon Dogma 60.1 bike, the KOBH (say "cob," short for cobblestone) just for Paris-Roubaix with some tweaks to make it a bit more comfortable in light of the constant pounding the riders take. (For roadies: note the small black "box" beneath the bottle cages—the battery pack for the Shimano Di2 electronic shifter system which several of the pro teams began using in 2009 and which has gotten excellent reviews for reliability—and also expense. The Pinarello KOBH below with the Di2 system sells for $10,380 in a basic configuration at Competitive Cyclist in Little Rock, AR.) Italian wheels—nice:

Good luck, boys!

What's Wrong with This Picture?

This April 15, a family of four with an income of $50,000, with two children younger than 17, will owe no federal income tax. They are part of the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income tax each year. Half the country is paying for the other half to get something (lots) for nothing.

The top 10 percent of earners in America pay about 73 percent of the taxes collected by the federal government. The bottom 40 percent of earners actually make a profit from the government via tax credits. The government actually sends them money.

Read the whole amazing story here.

Is This a Great Country or What?

The current offerings from five different American eating establishments—three fast-food and two baseball park concessions—are telling. They are so unbelievably unhealthy and artery clogging that they are hopefully being presented as novelty items. (But believe it—novelty or not, these companies wouldn't be offering these items if they didn't fully expect Americans to line up and lay their money down.) (You can see pictures of the five and read about them here. Please look at the pictures and read the captions which detail the calorie counts, etc.)

The very idea that these kinds of foodstuffs are being created, purchased, and eaten says a lot about the health culture in America. It's well established that cultures which traditionally enjoyed very low rates of chronic diseases, based on their traditional diets (mostly plant-based, non-processed) and lifestyles, are now suffering the same health declines as we see in America as a result of our food culture being exported around the world. It's also well-documented that when healthy peoples from these cultures emigrate to America, within one generation their health begins to decline.

Foods like the ones in the article linked to above would not even have been imaginable in these cultures just a few years ago. The fact that they are produced and sold, and laughed at, in America is an indication of just how immune we have become to the causes of ill-health. And in the midst of our decline, our government has just told us that we are free to live and eat any way we please since they (we) will pay for the debilitating results. Indeed, it will be cheaper to pay the fine for not having health insurance than the premiums on health insurance. So, many will choose not to purchase health insurance, which leaves more money to purchase the kinds of foods America has become famous for. And since pre-existing conditions no longer apply, we can eat at the five outlets mentioned above until we get sick, then sign on for healthcare on the public's dime.

On Monday have a Monster Thickburger at Hardee's or a Double Down at KFC, have a heart attack on Tuesday, and sign up for health insurance on Wednesday.

Is this a great country or what?

This Has to Stop

Another undercover operation in Jan-Feb of this year has documented horrific abuse of egg-laying hens at the second and third-largest egg producers in the nation. A HSUS (Humane Society of the U.S.) worker hired on for three weeks to work in the battery-cage factories where egg-laying hens are kept and shot the undercover video footage. Battery cage operations have only one motive: the maximization of profits at the expense of "workers"—the hens who lay the eggs. Three to five hens are crammed into small cages where they lay their eggs until they die or become too sick or too spent, at which point they are shipped off to slaughter houses. California and Michigan have passed laws banning battery cage hen operations, and all states should. I keep showing these videos, unsettling as they may be, so that more and more people will become aware of where the eggs come from that fill their grocery store's coolers. If you eat eggs (as I once did), your demand creates the supply that these systems meet. I stopped eating all animal products (including eggs) 10 years ago for more than animal abuse reasons, but said reasons would have been enough.

The Dangers of Not Owning a Farm

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.

To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the weekend in town astride a radiator.

From Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac—and Sketches Here and There (Oxford University Press, 1949). See also . . .

Leopold Conservation Award

The Aldo Leopold Archives

Leopold Heritage Group

The Aldo Leopold Foundation

Paper, Printing, and the iPad

Here's a good overview article on what the iPad (and other e-readers like the Kindle) means in the big picture of publishing. The author clearly summarizes this macro-fact: the biggest expense in paper publishing products (books, newspapers, magazines) are printing and shipping. HUGE amounts of energy (i.e., money) are expended every 24 hours to produce a product (newspaper) that is thrown out at the end of the day! And the whole thing is repeated every 24 hours, world without end. That's amazing. And the same for magazines like Time and Newsweek, except the lifespan is seven days instead of 24 hours. (Books obviously have a lifespan measured in years, so the cost is more gently spread out.)

But think about buying a book for an e-reader. One second before you push "Buy" on your computing device, that copy didn't exist. It is instantaneously generated from an existing digital master—like a cell replicating—and downloaded to your device at practically zero cost to the seller. The more copies sold, the cost-per-copy (web hosting the master copy, tech support, etc.) keeps going down.

While I lament the direction this is going for books, I can't argue with the premise. When you eliminate production and shipping costs, the profit margin per copy for e-books approaches 100 percent after the cost of creating the original. The only good side is that, while Apple and Amazon are currently charging prices for e-books approximately equal to hard copies, this ruse will quickly be realized by buyers and competitors will step in, selling the e-books for less. After all, there are plenty of companies who would be happy with, say, a 50% profit margin instead of a 95% profit margin.

Publishing is changing before our very eyes—literally.

Farmer Poets

I have subscribed to Small Farmer's Journal—The International Agrarian Quarterly for several years now, and read most pages of every quarterly issue. It's an "old-timey" magazine—large (10.5" x 13", about 100 pages), covered with brown-bag paper. The founder and editor, Lynn R. Miller, is a farmer-poet, artist, and author of many authoritative books dealing with horse-drawn farming. He is the driving force behind the developing Small Farms Conservancy and well-respected in agrarian, sustainable, small-farming circles.

What continues to impress me is the quality of the writing of many of the farmers Lynn invites to contribute to the Journal. I was touched by more than one passage from articles in the current issue (Winter, Vol. 34, No. 1), and share them here for your pleasure. (In all the following excerpts, I have "bolded" portions that were particularly meaningful to me—words worth pondering.)

Ryan Foxley is a farmer who began a regular column with his first article. In it he speaks of his appreciation for the Journal through the years.

It was with surprise and humbled excitement that I agreed to Lynn Miller's suggestion that I write a column for this, our treasured Small Farmer's Journal; this agrarian guidebook that so many of us have come to rely on and savor over the years. I have always said that if I had to choose between buying food or renewing my SFJ subscription I would go hungry. This magazine truly has had a profound impact on my life over the years. It has always been amply endowed with matters of practical know-how joined with a philosophical wisdom that has never been afraid of romance and poetry. It really is a place to come for reassurance, for consolation, for hope. The present world in which we live has no spreadsheet or bottom line accounting for slowness, for craft, for art, for poetry lived. Right livelihood should include a fair dose of intangible sweetness. The Journal has all this and more. It has always been there, reiterating good sense like a reassuring grandfather, assuaging fears when my self-induced agricultural isolation threatened to envelop me a fog of doubt and uncertainty. ("Little Field Notes," p. 40)

The following excerpt is from the article, "Primary Tillage at Cedar Mountain Farm, Part One," by Stephen Little:

Years ago in the pages of the Small Farmer's Journal, I read about the practice of "imprinting" oneself upon [a] newborn foal. I took this advice and held the first live foal born on our farm gently but firmly from stem to stern in the embrace of my arms for a full twenty minutes. I stand convinced that if you can convince horses and cattle when they are very young that you are the kindly but stronger and more dominate animal in the herd, and if you persist in living your life close to your horses and presenting to them a fair and consistent authority, then they will continue to believe this about you and to respect your wishes even as they grow up to attain gargantuan proportion and Herculean strength.

The bold portion above is about as meaningful a picture of man having dominion over animals as I've read (Genesis 1:28). Kindness, strength, fairness, consistency, and authority lead to a partnership between man and beast—at least some animals—that serves both well, and reflects the images from Genesis 2:19-20.

Little continues:

I suppose some farmer boy living sixty or more years ago might not have been so excited, might have been a little bored—might have even been day-dreaming about what life away off in the big city is like—such a boy might have been much impressed with his own God-given moment of driving a team of horses he'd trained himself on a plow he'd fitted an scoured and repaired dozens of times himself. But for a boy like me raised in the suburbs, every I hitch up my little team, no matter how mundane the farm task at hand, something elemental in my soul is kindled and all my worldly senses and the inner attention of my heart and the dull ministrations of my mind stand ready and are drawn into an awakened coalescence in this present moment of lines connected to horses in my hands.

There are many tangible rewards to farming and many more fleeting sweet and beautiful intangible ones—the ones that make the life worth living. Intangibles like sitting down to a delicious home cooked meal and hearing Kerry say, "All the ingredients in this meal are from the farm." Intangibles like watching our neighbors from up the street, Joe and Clare and their three little kids, making their weekly visit to the farm to pick up their jars of fresh raw milk and drop off some eggs from their home flock to sell in our farm store and then to linger and stroll about the barns visiting with calves, horses, chickens, and just seeing what a difference it makes in the lives of those kids that this place exists, and to think how empty and sterile this stretch of road would be if our farm were just another sub-division. Intangibles like watching my toddler daughter marvel at the sight and sound of bees alighting on the heavy heads of sunflowers or screeching in delight at the sight of chickens running after the apple core she just tossed into their pen. Intangibles like "whoaing" the horses to let them stop and blow and looking back behind to see the neatly laid over furrows that have followed in the wake of the plow they are pulling, and then turning back again to see them standing with the steam rising off their flanks, the mixed sweet scents of horse sweat mingled with freshly disturbed earth, the sounds of raucous crows up on the hill side and the promise of another season on the far side of this fall plowing. (p. 53)

The reference to the children above reminds me of my own dreams concerning Living Kitchen Farm.

Finally, a portion of an article by Lisa W. Roesing—her reflections on attending an organic farming fair in Maine with her farming family. Lisa lives in Ohio, but attending the fair rekindled in her the desire to get back to Maine, back to the farm on which she was raised. The article is titled "Sweet Annie," a reference to an herb, the scents of which wafted through the fair grounds and contributed to the longing she felt for her farm-home.

I've dreamed for so long about moving back and now it's so close I can taste it, I can feel it, my body aches with a desire for all that is High View Farm. My hands crave the feel of a set of single reins. The smooth leather slipping through my gloves, Pa speaks to the horse in his quiet gentle voice, "Whoa there, Red." I watch and learn as Pa wraps the heavy chain twice around the fresh cut pine and places the cold, rusty colored hook over a link. I can feel it. My lungs long for the sharp cold air. I inhale. The snow settles under my snow shoe clad feet as I help assist Pa in collecting the sap. The woods silently welcoming me home. I exhale. It won't be long. My eyes yearn to see my Gram, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, my family coming towards me. Arms open wide. Anticipating the hug, the feeling of being held and holding a loved one close. All is well. My feet ache to push deep into the fertile dark soil of the garden that has been lovingly tended by generations of Winslows. Darcy and I in the hot summer sun fill our buckets with strawberries to be used in ice cream, short cake, jam, and even some to be sold at the farmers market. Abbie and I walk the old logging trails, where only family, friends, and horses have tread. I'm almost there. My tongue hungers for farm and sustainably grown beef, eggs, lamb, butter, milk, and vegetables. I swirl the heavy cream into my coffee and add a dollop of syrup. Syrup, that I sat and watched boiling with a big heavy book in my hands. It will be soon now. My nose has an itch to smell the pine trees, the horses and the dairy. The fresh mown field and hay drying in the sun waiting to be raked into windrows. The memory of Sweet Annie wafting by as I walk in my father's footsteps and my soul is instantly grounded, my serenity restored. I'm ready, I'm coming home. (p. 35)

These passages aren't about being vegetarian, vegan, or not. They're about men and women who relish the life that parallels the place where God first placed man and woman to live, a Garden-farm. And they're about the eloquence of their voices and the depth of their understanding. It's a shame that small farmers, in our day, have a reputation for no longer having a voice that needs to be heard. Yet some of the most eloquent voices of the day are those of small farmers. Who can deny that Louis Bromfield, Wendell Berry, Charles Walters, Joel Salatin, Albert Howard, Elliot Coleman, Masanobu Fukuoka, Michael Ableman, Marion Nestle, Barbara Kingsolver, Scott and Helen Nearing, J. I. Rodale, Eve Balfour, Lynn Miller, Gene Logsdon, and a host of others whose voices have not yet been heard widely (like those quoted above), have things to say and share that would make this world a more sane place?

Sadly, as Ryan Foxley wrote, "The present world in which we live has no spreadsheet or bottom line accounting for slowness, for craft, for art, for poetry lived." But happily, the ranks of young, small farmers has been growing in recent years. After the Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Nixon and Ford, Earl Butz, admonished America's farmers to "Get big or get out," small farmers were forced out by the hundreds of thousands. But they are returning with renewed insights into the fallibility of accounting only for yields and dollars. There is a new accounting for "slowness, for craft, for art, for poetry lived." And we will be the better for it.

The Lord Is Risen

THE LORD IS RISEN!

Hail to thee, Festival Day! Blest day that art hallowed for ever;

Day wherein God destroyed hell, rising again from the dead.

He who was nailed to the Cross is God and the Ruler of all things;

All things created on earth worship the Maker of all.

God of all pity and power, let thy word be assured to the doubting;

Light on the third day returns: rise, Son of God, from the tomb.

Ill doth it seem that thy limbs should linger in lowly dishonour,

Ransom and price of the world, veiled from the vision of men.

Ill doth it seem that thou, by whose hand all things are encompassed,

Captive and bound should remain, deep in the gloom of the rock.

Rise now, O Lord, from the grave and cast off the shroud that enwrapped thee;

Thou are sufficient for us; nothing exists without thee.

Mourning they laid thee to rest, who art Author of life and creation;

Treading the pathway of death, life thou bestowest on man.

Show us thy face once more, that all times may exult in thy brightness;

Give us the light of day, darkened on earth at thy death.

Out of the prison of death thou art rescuing numberless captives;

Freely they tread in the way wither their Maker has gone.

Jesus has harrowed hell; he has led captivity captive;

Darkness and chaos and death flee from the face of the light.

Easter Processional, Western Rite, Venantuis Fortunatus

(Thanks to Dr. Ken Boa for this Easter meditation.)

Compost Is Cooking

Checked the temperature of the compost that I posted about two days ago—this afternoon it's holding at 142 degrees:



Two days ago it was "room temperature"—around 75 degrees in the shade. But simply turning it (to add oxygen), and adding water and alfalfa meal as food for the microbes, got the critters going again and nearly doubled the temperature. 

The Necessity of Marriage

Last night I attended  the Veritas Lecture Series at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Weddington, NC (suburb of Charlotte). The guest speakers were Dr. Robert George, professor at Princeton University, and Maggie Gallagher, co-founder and president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (IMPP). The title for the evening's presentation was "Marriage: Why It Can and Must Be Saved."

It was an amazing opportunity to hear two of the most important leaders in America in the fight to preserve the institution of marriage in its traditional (one man, one woman) form. Dr. George was the primary writer of The Manhattan Declaration (see next post, below) and they were both instrumental, especially Gallagher, in the passage in November 2008 of "Proposition 8" (California Marriage Protection Act) that amended the California state Constitution to read, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." They were told that the Proposition had absolutely no chance of passage, but through their efforts—and the efforts of many other grass-roots groups—it succeeded.

It's amazing to listen to people who have such experience, knowledge, and intellectual horsepower, combined with grace and faith. Dr. George's c.v. is exhausting just to read—graduate of both Harvard (law and divinity schools) and Oxford (philosophy of law) Universities, admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts, author/editor of more than a dozen books—all focused on the defense of personal liberties and moral foundations consistent with a biblical worldview. Gallagher (Yale grad) has authored five books on marriage and has the dogged, not to be deterred nature of a dog with a bone. I would not want to be on opposite sides of either in an intellectual fight. The two work together through IMPP (and in other venues) in addition to many other individual pursuits.

They were introduced by Dr. Alex McFarland, president of Southern Seminary:



Dr. Barry Leventhal, Dean and professor at the Seminary, gave the invocation. He and I chatted later about the impact he had on my life back around 1971. I was a pretty young Christian, in graduate school at the University of Alabama, and growing in my faith through Campus Crusade for Christ. CCC sponsored an evangelistic evening in one of the campus fraternity houses (SAE, I believe—my own fraternity at Birmingham-Southern College), and Barry was the main speaker. He had been a standout on the UCLA national champion football team and was a Jewish convert to Christ. He gave a hilarious talk—perfect for an audience of skeptical frat guys and sorority girls—and while I was already a believer, I remember being greatly encouraged by his talk. He was appreciative of the memory, and also graciously insisted we get together soon to see if I can't finish up my own lapsed doctoral studies through Southern Seminary. I basically just lacked the dissertation when I had to drop out of a Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Seminary in 1985. Don't know if it will work out to conclude those studies at Southern, but he was gracious to invite consideration. He and I both graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary (where he also earned a doctorate), so share that cultural connection.

I snapped this picture of Dr. Levnenthal while he was praying, thus his closed eyes:



The speakers spoke conversationally in an interview fashion with Dr. McFarland, rather than lecturing:



Dr. Robert George:





Maggie Gallagher:





During the Q and A session following the talks, a young man identified himself as the editor of a local gay/lesbian newsletter and asked an accusatory, but polite, question about the speakers' positions. I thought, "Yo boy" wondering if he knew what he was getting into. I snapped Maggie Gallagher's posture as the young man spoke . . .



They weren't in the least put off by the question/accusation. She and Dr. George were completely gracious and complimentary to the young man for his honesty in identifying himself (in a decidedly partisan crowd) and did the best they could to address his concerns. They have spent so much of their lives in hostile settings that they have apparently learned how to handle objections and accusations with graceful aplomb—speaking the truth with love. Indeed, Dr. George's last exhortation of the evening to the mostly-Christian audience was the necessity for maintaining an attitude of love and grace when dealing with those who disagree. Very impressive stuff. 

Even more impressive was a long answer he gave to another question about the use of biblical doctrine as a defense of his positions when dealing with people who don't recognize the authority of Scripture. He explained that it's not enough to quote the Bible. You have to understand why God revealed the positions that Scripture takes. That is, why did God say that a man and a woman should become one flesh (Gen. 2:24)—"one flesh" being a literal, not metaphorical, reference to the sexual dimension of marriage (available, by natural law, to only a man and a woman). It might be possible for marriage to have emotional union, as same-sex couples do without the ability to copulate naturally, but only one man-one woman unions have the ability to satisfy every dimension of creative union: spiritual, emotional, and physical. He pointed out that philosophers like (Greek) Plato and (Roman) Musonios recognized this without the benefit of biblical revelation and came to the same conclusion as the Bible based purely on philosophy and reason, not revelation. I haven't done his words justice, but after he apologized for the long discourse in answer to the question, the audience spontaneously applauded—as much for, I think, the scope of George's answer as for the answer itself. 

So—a stimulating evening in many regards. It's rare to get this close to folks of the stature of Gallagher and George, yet it was also a reminder that they are "just folks." All of us can be involved at our own levels and with our own gifts to stem the erosion of the foundational values on which coherent and cohesive societies depend.

Thanks again to Daniel for the heads-up on a meeting I otherwise would have missed. (Turns out one of Daniel's professors from the University of South Carolina had recently lectured on natural law at Southern Seminary. This professor, Dr. Christopher Tollefson, and Dr. George coauthored Embryo: A Defense of Human Life [2008]). 

The Manhattan Declaration Revisited

I posted back in January about the Manhattan Declaration, a multi-denominational statement of biblical values about marriage, the sanctity of life, and core moral foundations. I encouraged readers to join the hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens who have already signed it—and to encourage others to do so. It is gaining traction—the Kentucky state legislature recently adopted the Manhattan Declaration by voice vote as a show of support. 

One of the three co-authors of the Declaration, Dr. Robert George (Harvard Law School, Harvard Divinity School, Oxford University D.Phil in philosophy of law), is speaking in Charlotte tonight, a meeting I hope to attend. (Thanks to son Daniel for the heads-up.)

Please consider signing the Declaration if you haven't already done so.

Good for Neal McDonough!

Hollywood actor Neal McDonough (Band of Brothers, Desperate Housewives) has been sacked from his current (reportedly million dollar) TV gig because of his refusal to do sex scenes. Reason? He's a "family man and a Catholic" and has made his position clear to casting agents. While I know nothing about Mr. McDonough, if what I've read is true then I say hats off to the man for having principles and sticking to them in the face of financial loss. (Read more.)

Lord Have Mercy

My Southern mother, rest her soul, would exclaim, sometimes whisper, "Lord have mercy" (all one phrase; no comma). I couldn't have predicted when I would hear it, but was never surprised when I did. It was an expression of amazement, of startled realization or awareness, that seemed to have little to do with the Lord or with mercy. Yet, to my Southern sensibility, it was the right thing to say when she said it. She meant no disrespect; no violation of the third commandment. Indeed, there was a note of reverence in her voice. To this day, I don't fully understand the tradition from whence the expression arose.

But arise it did, always on time. And it settled in my young acculturated conscience so that I find myself thinking it sometimes as an adult. I know the Lord, and I understand mercy, and the moments when "Lord have mercy" appears in my thoughts have, just like when Mama said it, nothing to do with either. Yet it appears, unbidden, at just the right occasional moment. Like tonight when I watched the videos of one Crystal Bowersox, the heir apparent to the next American Idol crown. I found myself shaking my head and thinking, "Lord have mercy." 

I have been a sometimes half-, sometimes whole-, hearted American Idol watcher in the past when the competition got down to the final dozen. This year, I haven't paid much attention given how underwhelmed I was with what I saw of the contestants. It's as if Idol has finally exhausted America's supply of young talent. (I say that with all due respect to those who are giving their all—far more than I could give.) I have a church commitment on Tuesday nights so have missed most of the live performances, but caught glimpses of Crystal Bowersox a couple of times—and my interest was piqued.

So I went to the Idol web site tonight and watched the replay of all her performances. And there it came: "Lord have mercy." I just shake my head at the raw talent of someone so young, from what I understand is a fairly challenging background. When she takes the stage with her guitar, she exudes a level of confidence and calm control that sets her apart from the other contestants. Listening to her version of "Me and Bobby McGhee" with eyes closed, one might wonder if Janis Joplin was back from the dead. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Give Me One Reason" were also amazing. Her vocalization and phrasing are a gift; her touch on the guitar so deft. 

She's not without weaknesses; when she tried singing without her guitar this past Tuesday night she wasn't quite sure what to do with her hands. But that's okay. She may become an artist like k.d. lange who does some of her best work with guitar in hand. I don't know if she'll win this year or not. But even if she doesn't, I can't believe she won't be snapped up by a label. Her kind of talent won't go unnoticed. Simon Cowell has as much as said that the competition is hers to lose. (One thing I do miss about this year's Idol is Paula—for one specific reason (and only this reason): Paula was the only judge who could not stay in her chair when a performer and his or her song called forth an energetic response. A former Laker's girl and choreographer, Paula's shameless solo dancing at the judges' table added energy to the scene and encouragement to the singer. And I feel sure she would have been on her feet for several of Crystal Bowersox's songs.)

If you want to play through the videos, go to this page. Wait patiently and the videos will cycle through the window one after another. It's a few minutes of slow headshaking, and for me, a few tears and a "Lord have mercy." 

Waking Up the Compost

The movie Clear and Present Danger opens with a Coast Guard cutter overtaking a suspicious boat somewhere off the U.S. coast. When the suspicious vessel fails to acknowledge the Coast Guard's presence by slowing down, the cutter's captain gives a cold command to the sailor at the helm: "Wake 'em up!" An ear-shattering blast of the cutter's horn fails to slow the vessel, and the sailors man the bow gun and prepare to board.

Sometimes compost—actually, bio-organisms in the compost—needs to be waked up as well. The compost pile I fed with scraps over the winter had lain dormant during the cold months when the microbial life slowed down to a crawl. But with the warmer weather it's time to wake the critters—get 'em fed, wet, and aired out so they can pick up where they left off last fall and turn my food and yard scraps into humus.

This is a lame compost bin—not really enough mass to get really hot. But it has to suffice for the time being. I forked the scraps from a previous bin into this new bin, which provides oxygen and remixes the scraps. After every new layer (6"-8" of scraps) I added alfalfa meal as a nitrogen source for the microbes and dampened the scraps with the hose. Air, food, water—what every biological being needs, microbes being no exception.

Re-Cycling

My neighbor, John, pulled a rusted hulk out of a dumpster a few years ago and held on to it, waiting for a chance to re-cycle it. When the young son of another neighbor was ready for his own two-wheeler, John did his thing: disassembly, major cleaning, unlocking rust-frozen nuts and chain, repainting body and wheels, new fork bearings, seat, tires, and grips, several days' labor—and a name plate for young David. A great example of keeping something out of a landfill and restoring it to usefulness. All it took was a little resourcefulness and care.

Nice work, John. (And thanks to John for the clever "re-cycle" title. Get it?)

Many People Still Don't Know This

On July 17, 2009, the American Dietetic Association released their position paper on vegetarian/vegan diets:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the lifecycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

It's amazing how many people still don't understand that there is nothing in animal-based foods that is needed by human beings for good health that cannot be found in plant foods. Dietician Jeff Novick explains, however, that the key phrases in the ADA statement are "appropriately planned" and "well-planned"—meaning a diet of whole foods: vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds, and grains. It is entirely possible to put together a diet of vegan junk food as with conventional junk food, but that is obviously not what the ADA says is acceptable.

To explain the difference, I have used the terms "defensive veganism" and "offensive veganism." Defensive veganism focuses on what one is NOT going to eat (animal products) while offensive veganism focuses on what one IS going to eat (a wide variety of whole, plant-based foods). As in sports, both defense and offense are important, but too many people focus just on the former. Many people who become vegan from an animal rights perspective are focused on NOT eating animals (a defensive posture); they try to live on vegan fake food (soy products) and find their health compromised. They eliminate meat (defensive) without incorporating (offensive) whole plant foods. 

The ADA paper concludes:

"Appropriately planned vegetarian diets have been shown to be healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may be beneficial in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle. There are many reasons for the rising interest in vegetarian diets. The number of vegetarians in the United States is expected to increase during the next decade. Food and nutrition professionals can assist vegetarian clients by providing current, accurate information about vegetarian nutrition, foods, and resources."

More Bad News for Agave Nectar

On the heels of Dr. Mercola's negative article yesterday (see my post below), more bad news today about agave nectar from an even better source: vegan dietician Jeff Novick who has become one of the go-to guys in the plant-based world for nutritional advice. He makes the interesting point that some of the same "natural food" stores that outlaw HFCS products (high fructose corn syrup)—like the Earthfare chain of stores in the southeast—sell agave nectar as a recommended sweetener even though agave has a higher fructose content than HFCS! There is also misleading information regarding agave's (low—lower is better) glycemic index scores that Novick addresses. 

Read the article here. Bottom line: agave isn't all it's been cracked up to be. 

Addendum, same day: I was at Costco this afternoon and stopped by the booth where a guy was demonstrating and selling the BlendTec blender, making and giving away fruit smoothies. He was also selling QUARTS of agave nectar! Why would anyone need to further sweeten a fruit smoothie with agave—or anything else? (Full Disclosure: in September, 2008, I posted on this blog my recipe for the fruit smoothie I make almost daily. At that time, I included in the ingredients one Tbsp of agave nectar. It was not long after that that I began reading about agave and stopped using it in my smoothies. It just wasn't necessary given all the natural sugar in the fruit. I have since deleted it from the recipe I posted. Live and learn! I need to update that recipe and repost it since I have tweaked it a good bit since Sept 2008. It was good then, but is even better now—with the addition of kale, spinach, and some other goodies.)

The Solitary Life of the Master Craftsman

I recently learned about a luthier in Bedford, Virginia, James Jones, who has been making mountain music instruments for several decades (hammered dulcimers, bowed psaltries, zithers, Appalachian dulcimers, harps, slit drums, thumb pianos, and Celtic bouzoukis). The instruments are beautiful and compelling, not only in their sound but in the mountain traditions they preserve for future generations.

You can view his instruments and other items (he makes kitchen cutting boards out of scrap wood) at his web site. But I really want to recommend this Flickr slide show of the making of a Celtic bouzouki (sort of a mandolin on steroids). As the 150 images pass by, one is struck by the solitary, silent life of a master craftsman—a person who finds contentment in designing and constructing objects of utility and beauty for others to enjoy. The slide show takes just a few minutes to view and is well worth the time. 

Agave: You May Be Better Off Drinking the Tequila

Agave nectar has become the fashionable sugar-substitute of choice in the last couple of years. I even noticed a two-pack of large bottles of organic agave nectar at Costco yesterday. The blue agave plant grows native in Mexico and, once fermented, forms the basis of tequila.

Dr. Mercola has published a scathing critique of agave nectar, saying it is higher in fructose than the much-bedeviled HFCS (high fructose corn syrup)—fructose being the bad-for-you form of "sugar" (glucose being the natural, good form). Along with the fructose count, agave nectar is highly chemical-processed and devoid of nutrients—you can read the rest of the story here.

If Dr. Mercola is right, caveat emptor—let the buyer beware. Clever marketing can make natural things look good even after all the "nature" has been removed. (It goes without saying that I'm not a scientist or nutritionist, so can't evaluate Mercola's claims. I pass along the link for your own consideration.)