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The Agora of the Milwaukee Renaissancehttp://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/DailyAgoraAnnouncements/HomePage The Agora of Athens in its glory days as a “democratic” city state was the open space in the city’s center that served as the central meeting place. Pretend that we are free to meet our fellow citizens here and announce important news. This Agora in the “noosphere” is open to good people like yourself. Don’t complain about the media. Be the media!
Witness Against the War: July 20th Walk from Chicago to St. PaulMilwaukee Potluck at Quaker HouseVoices for Creative Nonviolence is sponsoring a walk from Chicago to St. Paul this summer, arriving in St. Paul in time for the start of the Republican Party Convention. They come thru Racine and stay at Siena Center July 18th and then on to Oak Creek arriving in Milwaukee Sunday, July 20th, then on to Brookfield and Waukesha the two following days. From there, all along the route to Madison and on to St. Paul following closely the path of I 94, cities and villages, members of the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice, will be receiving the walkers, joining them for sections of the walk and reminding the citizens of Wisconsin that our state wants an end to the war in Iraq now. We expect the presidential candidates to pledge their support to end the war quickly in 2009, bring all the troops and contractors home, and support the Iraqis in rebuilding their homeland. You can support their efforts AND all of our efforts to end the war by
Here’s the tentative schedule:
Mon. morning Lv for Brookfield at 9:00 am from Zeidler Park on 4th and Michigan.
Note that all who participate are bound to the Nonviolence Guidelines. If you would like to join the walk for more than one day please sign the attached core agreement for participants and send to dan.vcnv@gmail.com VCNV Scheduled Presentations in the Racine/Milwaukee Area July 18 – Siena Center
July 20 - Friends Meeting House
July 21 - Unitarian Universalist Church West
Please plan to participate as you are able somewhere along the way, and perhaps join for a day of the journey. For complete info and updates, see http://vcnv.org/witness-against-war or call Sr. Virgine at 414–418–4116. Dan Pearson
Phone: 773–878–3815 web: www.vcnv.org
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. ~Mother Teresa
Leading Restoration Contractor and MPS Teacher Starting a Family Food Garden at Eastside HomeGodsil. You are a city family that has started your own backyard four season food garden, perhaps among the first l per cent of the population to undertake such a project. Might you share your reasons for doing so and the farthest reaching vision of where such a project might take you and your children. Josh and/or Jamie Fraundorf. We’ve always loved the city and all of the fun things to do. However, living in the city, you can get sort of disconnected from the environment and where your food comes from. Both of us had dairy farms in our families that we spent much time at growing up. We’ve always been outdoor people. Gardening for us is a fun way to be outside and “live greener” in our own small way. This year we expanded our garden about 18ft into our driveway to create three new raised gardens which we couldn’t be happier about. Some of our family members think we’re a bit crazy to get rid of some of our off street parking in the city but we think it’s a great use of space. The enjoyment after a hard days work to come back to my house and spend a couple hours in garden has been a great stress reliever. The long term vision of our garden plan is to have kind of an outdoor classroom for our family. Our raised gardens have been our own way of getting the organic foods that we desire as well as learning and teaching or children how they grow. Composting is kind of an experiment with chemistry to see what breaks down faster. It has been amazing how much garbage we have eliminated just by food scraps. Next, we’d like to try worm composting in the basement as well as a small fish farm. I really hope that in the future I’ll be able to spend just as much time doing roof top gardens as I do with roofing projects in Milwaukee. I believe this is just the beginning of great things to come in Milwaukee with urban farming and can’t wait to see what the future brings.
A New City of New OrleansGood morning, America, how are you?
I was down but now I’m back
There’s a train they call
Detroit, Old Milwaukee, and Chicago,
And on that train a rainbow throng is gathering,
Good morning, America, how are you?
I was down but now I’m back
Growing Round the Houses Paper From London International Urban Agriculture ConferenceI thought you may be interested in the briefing paper that we’re launching on Monday at the ‘Growing Food for London’ conference. If you’re too eager to see it to read through the following(!), just follow this link to find the briefing paper: http://www.sustainweb.org/pdf/food_growing_&_social_housing.pdf News Release
Rising food prices and increased interest in healthy food, means more people are looking to grow their own. Growing Round the Houses1, a new briefing paper by Ben Reynolds of Sustain2 and Christine Haigh of Women’s Environmental Network3 (WEN), explains how social housing providers and their tenants can work together on their estates to grow food. As well giving advice on how to set up a food growing project on their estate, it describes examples such as the Spitalfields Estate Community Garden, where residents worked together to build themselves a food growing space for vegetables and herbs popular with the local ethnic minority community. With urban allotments like gold dust, housing estates, with wide, underused green spaces are coming into their own, turning over their lawns to food growing plots. Ben Reynolds said “There’s incredible interest in growing your own food. Vegetable seed is overtaking flower seed sales for the first time. We hope this work will be the catalyst for a new dawn for urban agriculture.” Christine Haigh, who works on WEN’s Local Food programme with women’s groups in East London, says “This paper provides inspiration and useful guidance for residents and social landlords looking to set up similar projects.” Simon Donovan, community development manager at Tower Hamlets Community Housing4 comments, “The food growing project on the Spitalfields estate is an inspiration. Residents are talking to their neighbours, taking charge of their own space and having a pride in it. As well as cheap healthy food, there are physical and mental health benefits from the outdoor activity involved.” The document will be launched on 30th June at the Growing Food for London conference in London[#rth5 | 5], the first time that the diverse urban agriculture communities – such as food growers, park keepers, architects and others - have been brought together in London.
Press contact: Ben Reynolds, London Food Link project officer at Sustain, tel (work): 020 7837 1228, (mobile): 07939 202711, Ben@sustainweb.org
Citations
2) Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming represents around 100 national public-interest organisations. Sustain (a not-for-profit organisation) advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, promote equity and enrich society and culture. www.sustainweb.org 3) Women’s Environmental Network is the only organisation in the UK working consistently for women and the environment. WEN’s local food project provides training and support to groups of women growing food in urban areas. http://www.wen.org.uk/ 4) Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH) is a Registered Social Landlord (RSL) and a Registered Charity that owns over 2,800 homes in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. http://www.thch.org/ 5) The Growing Food for London conference is an all day event at City Hall, on Monday 30th June. Booking is necessary. Speakers include Tim Lang (City University), Joe Nasr (author of Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities), Fritz Haeg, (author of Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn) and Ian Collingwood (Middlesborough Council regeneration, and lead on the Middlesborough Urban Farming project). The event, which is jointly organised with the London Parks and Green Spaces Forum, is part of the London Festival Architecture.
21st Century Milwaukee Helps the World Feed ItselfNot Vast Wheat Farms But Square Foot Backyard/Rooftop Worm Depositories & Food Gardens19th century Milwaukee may have been the port
There is a lovely poster with a beautiful women
Perhaps the image for the 21st Century
With the help of worms and radiant waste,
SLOW FOOD NATION AND SAN FRANCISCO PLANT FIRST EDIBLE GARDEN AT CITY HALL IN 65 YEARSCity Breaks Ground on July 1 for Slow Food Nation Victory Garden July 12 Community Planting Day with Mayor Gavin Newsom, Slow Food Nation Founder Alice Waters and Dozens of Bay Area Community Gardening Organizations San Francisco, CA (June 24, 2008) — Beginning Tuesday, July 1, the lawn in front of San Francisco’s City Hall will undergo a transformation from grass carpet to edible garden, as dozens of Bay Area organizations join together to plant the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden. On Saturday, July 12, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Slow Food Nation founder Alice Waters and more than 100 volunteers will plant the first edible garden in the City’s Civic Center since 1943. The Victory Garden project takes its name from 20th Century wartime efforts to address food shortages by encouraging citizens to plant gardens on public and private land. In the early 1940s, Victory Gardens were a way for San Francisco residents to participate in developing a secure source of domestic food during a time of war, which was one of the most pressing issues of the day. Victory Gardens sprouted in front yards and vacant lots, and produced 40 percent of the nation’s vegetable’‘s. San Francisco’s program became one of the best in the country; Golden Gate Park alone had 250 garden plots. “The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden is one more way to showcase the City’s tangible commitment to sustainability and, as in the past, confront some of the most challenging issues of our times,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “For many urban residents, access to healthy and nutritious food is as important now as it was during the Second World War.” Slow Food Nation, the largest celebration of American food in history, takes place in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend (August 29 to September 1, 2008). The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden in the Civic Center will serve as a demonstration and education centerpiece leading up to and following the Labor Day weekend event, providing visitors the opportunity to learn about urban food production. Bounty from the garden will be donated to those with limited access to healthy, organic produce through a partnership with local food banks and meal programs. “San Francisco Victory Gardens 08+ redefines ‘Victory’ in the context of modern urban sustainability. ‘Victory’ means growing food at home for increased local food security and social equity,” said John Bela, Victory Gardens 08+ Program Manager. “The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden demonstrates the potential of building community around local food production, and along with the City’s creation of a
The Slow Food Nation Victory Garden is designed and built by the Garden for the Environment’s Victory Garden 08+ Program, CMG Landscape Architecture and City Slicker Farms, using seeds donated from Seeds of Change and numerous individuals from around the country. Other participating organizations include: The Presidio Native Plant Nursery, Alemany Farms, Friends of the Urban Forest, Ploughshares Nursery,
The garden is produced in partnership with Victory Gardens 08+, developed by the Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco’s Department for the Environment. Their mission is to respond to the social and ecological challenges that San Franciscans and all urban residents face in creating
About Slow Food Nation Slow Food Nation is a subsidiary non-profit of Slow Food USA and part of the international Slow Food movement. It was created to organize the first-ever American collaborative gathering to unite the growing sustainable food movement and introduce thousands of people to food that is good, clean and fair through enjoyable, accessible and educational activities. Slow Food Nation is dedicated to creating a framework for deeper environmental connection to our food and aims to inspire and empower Americans to build a food system that is sustainable, healthy and delicious. www.slowfoodnation.org For interviews and more information, please contact: Naomi Starkman
Layla Azimi
NATIVE PLANT SALE at Humboldt Alterra This Saturday, 9 a.m. to noon(part of proceeds go to Riverwest Neighborhood Association for native
With their all-native plants encircling their building, we thought
This Saturday, June 28 from 9:00 to 12:00 at the new Alterra (on
Plants range from Asters, white to sky blue (a great plant for
Randy Powers of Prairie Future Seed has collected these seeds
Questions, call 414–795–5063. Home Neighborhood Where Kids Dramatically SaferOne time I designed a home neighborhood that had streets that were all dead end. In the Grand Commons were playgrounds, swimming pool, meeting rooms, reading room, volley ball, tennis and basketball courts, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, etc. In the front of all homes was the streets and behind all homes was the “commons” which connected to the “Grand Commons” connecting all the “commons”. No outlets so children could walk out their back door and be in the commons and meet other kids or go to the Grand Commons. Perfect safety. People walked, rode bikes, tricycles, etc. The only entrance to the commons was service vehicle gates which were locked at all times. Along one side of the development, facing the major road, would be offices, grocery, stores, etc [strip mall]. Entrance to them from the Grand Commons as well as the street side. Could not get anyone interested. Ken Hargesheimer
Tim Russert: A Child of Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis of Assissi, and Virgin MaryTim Russert I have been deeply moved by the outpouring of
Part of his love and glory
The Roman Catholic Church as an institution
Tim Russert and people like him,
Perfect Summer Day
Outpost Natural Foods Thrilled w. Rooftop Farm of Artisan Turning Urban FarmerThis comes from an organizer at Milwaukee’s Outpost Natural Foods, recently connected with Community Growers(inspired by Will Allen’s Growing Power), which connects urban artisans with urban farming. Erik Lindberg has been astonished at the yield Growing Power’s compost affords. From Diana Sieger of Outpost: You’re going to flip when you hear this- 146 steps across Capitol drive…then up a ladder is Outpost’s next source for sustainably raised produce. Thursday we met Erik Lindberg from Community Growers when he brought Keith and his staff a sample of what he’s growing over there on his roof top garden. We practically did cartwheels back to the store to tell everyone about it! (I wonder how many cartwheels it is if it’s 146 steps?) Anyways, a million thank yous to Keith for hooking us up right away with a video interview - and photos for the signs that we’ll have in the store featuring their produce. Erik has a little of this, a little of that as he figures out what grows best up there…we’re just feeling pretty lucky we get to help him get the word out! Walkin’ the talk yo.
watch the video interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLsAUS86J7E Growing Urban Farming Movement With Urban Artisans The arrival in Milwaukee of the Community Growers network of artisans, artists, urban agrarians, and sustainability theorists/activists in Milwaukee suggests serious consideration be given to projects that aim to connect the urban agriculture movement with the restoration artisans and their informal guilds in our big cities. See the front page story of this welcome development at…
 Urban Restoration Carpenter’s “Victory Garden” Atop Commercial Building Complementarity of “Talented 10%” of Restoration Trades and Urban Agriculture Movement The “talented 10%” of our big city restoration carpenters, roofers, metal smiths, masons, and painters are predisposed to seriously consider and succeed in urban agriculture these days for many reasons. Resources Already Possessed by Restoration Trades
Opportunities for “Mighty Collaborations” Right At Your Front Door! Many of the key theorists and practitioners of the urban agriculture movement own old houses that will require them to connect with members of the restoration trades. Consider spending some time with your roofer, carpenter, mason, painter, etc., explaining and showing them the possibilities of intensive soil development with composting and worms and the high yields for use and market such rich soil in small places will afford. Many members of the artisan class these days are migrants from rural backgrounds with farm skills yet in extended families from down south, Mexico and other Latin American countries, eastern European and Eurasian migration streams. Urban farming has great promise to fill otherwise empty time as well as offer family members of your artisan classes a means of new use and exchange value. Connect Your Tradesmen w. Joe Jenkins, Josh Fraundorf, and Erik Lindberg Joe Jenkins, author of “Humanure,” is the nation’s foremost authority on slate roofs, i.e. also author of “Slate Roof Bible.” Two of the founders of Milwaukee’s Community Growers, Josh Fraundorf and Erik Lindberg, will combine for a couple of million of restoration projects in 2008. All three of these leaders of the trades are deeply committed to connecting their fellow artisans with the urban and organic family farm movements. Consider suggesting your favorite artisans send an e-mail to UrbanArtisanFarmExperiments@milwaukeerenaissance.com? to initiate a conversation that might serve them and your community greatly. Also consider developing some grant proposals aimed directly at doing what is needed to marry the urban restoration trades with the food security movement. A number of Milwaukeeans in this effort would very much enjoy brainstorming this vision with you! The Marriage That Made Your City Some Kind of Holy Place Your city will start feeling like some kind of Holy City, when
They’ll deliver this precious cargo of potency
The kids in the hood will gather buckets of compost material
Godsil
Will Allen Says “Don’t Let the Floods Get You Down!”Pictures of Will’s Farm Before and After the FloodA Call to All Growers: DO NOT LOSE HOPE! GO BACK TO YOUR FIELDS AND REPLANT! That’s what I’m going to do. Our communities need our GOOD FOOD.   My Best,
Growing Power
Kitchen Gardeners International Newsletter June 2008Enjoy: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/newsletterjune08.html KGI Newsletter: June 2008 Contents: Spotlight on Africa:
Gardening:
Food and cooking
Food systems change
Just for fun:
Community blog posts:
Forum discussions:
Featured Network Members:
Popular videos:
Earth Keepers’ Voices for Native America Summer Solstice celebrationSaturday, June 21, 2008; Mitchell Park (27th and National Ave in Milwaukee), late morning open drumming; Potluck lunch; 12:00 to 3:30: musicians and poets (including Harvey Taylor), and speakers on Sacred Sites protection. Literature tables. Families welcome. No cost.
Summer Solstice Celebration Saturday, June 21, 7:30 p.m. Urban Ecology Center, 1500 Park Pl (just W. of Oakland, Riverside Park) Celebrate the solstice by drumming, sharing poetry and witnessing the sunset with local artist Harvey Taylor. Meet on the top of the “sledding hill”. Bring a drum (or use one of ours), a favorite song or poem to share and a blanket to sit on.
**
In Wisconsin, Earth Keepers’ Voices for Native America (EKVNA) will host a short ceremony on Friday, June 20, 8:00 AM, at the entrance of Aztalan State Park on Highway Q in Jefferson County. This will be followed by a 15-mile relay run south to Fort Atkinson and then southwest to the Koshkonong Mounds. (The route will be south on Q, to Highway 89 south to Fort Atkinson; Highway 26 south to Old Highway 26 to Koshkonong Mounds Road.) The public is invited, at no cost, to join the ceremony and run. That Friday night (6–20) there will be a music benefit in Fort Atkinson for EKVNA’s Sacred Sites Run 2008. The concert begins at 6 PM at Café Carpe, 18 S. Water St. West, Fort Atkinson, and features Skip Jones, Clinton Miller, and Patrick Klaybor. $10 at the door. For more information, contact me (414) 801–0534.
E.F. Schumacher Society and Rodale Institute’s “New Farm” Offer Insight Into How to Develop Local Food MovementOne group that has developed community programs that address some of this is the E.F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, MA. Check out their website. Their work is stunning. http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/ Another great source is the Rodale Institute’s publication New Farm. Under Greg Bowman’s editorship, New Farm has become a valuable resource for all of us in this movement. http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/new_farm We need to have a conversation about what it means to “grow our movement”. In particular, I believe we need to work on ways consumers and farmers can work together to help transition existing, nearby farms into participants in emerging local food systems. This transition work, in my opinion, should extend to transitioning to organic farming practices, as well.
Christopher Bedford offered the above information. CENTER FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY
Montague, MI 49437
City Repair: Social Permaculture in PortlandTransforming Streets into Active Commons for Creating CommunityPosted by Jonathan Rowe <http://onthecommons.org/user/6> on Tue, 04/10/2007 - 3:06pm The drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to Portland Oregon, up Highway 5, passes through a splendid natural landscape and a diminished human one. There are islands of local particularity, yes. But along the highway one encounters an endless succession of Best Westerns, Taco Bells — you know the list. You drive six hundred miles and stay in the same place. After all those billions spent to defeat the Soviet Union, we have embraced its numbing uniformity, only with a higher entertainment quotient and a better paint job. Then there’s Portland, which is trying to resist this commercial Sovietization and the social pathologies that go with it, Downtown there is Pioneer Square, which set a new standard for urban commons, and a host of kindred spaces. In the neighborhoods, meanwhile, there is the City Repair project, which is resurrecting a commons consciousness block by block. “Turning spaces into places,” is how the people there put it. City Repair is not about fixing structures. It is about the life that flows through and between structures when they are intelligently designed. Mark Lakeman, one of the founders, calls it permaculture in an urban setting. “We empower local, urban communities (neighborhoods) to creatively interrupt the city Grid in order to transform streets into active, social commons,” he wrote with Lydia Doleman, his partner. The typical urban grid was designed for the ease of marketing individual lots - that is, for turning space into real estate. It is a geometric dictator that makes little provision for the contours of the landscape or the needs of human interaction. In Portland, however, someone had the foresight to modify the grid in ways conducive to neighborhood. Streets dead-end for a block or two, thus deterring through traffic. Small traffic circles at many intersections deter traffic further. City Repair takes that thinking to the proverbial next level. It starts with intersections, which today are dominated by automobiles, and reclaims them for human intercourse. Neighbors get together and build cob structures, paint bright murals on the pavement, and generally conjure life out of what now are social dead zones. Lakeman took me on a tour of several City Repair sites last week. (There are about fifty now and growing.) One featured a Poetry Plaza, with a cob bench, a solar-powered lighthouse, and a box into which people can deposit their own poems and read those of others. Elsewhere there were cob benches, tea houses, kiosks, bulletin boards with solar lighting, even a memorial to a young bicyclist who was hit by a truck that ran a stop sign at the corner (see photo.) The latter was on a private yard. When people get into the spirit of community place-making the boundaries between the private and the common - the /me/ and the /we/ — begin to soften. Residents have commented on how the structures, and especially the process of creating them, have been lubricants to community. People are meeting neighbors they never talked with in ten years of living across the street. Strangers have become neighbors; and not surprisingly, some neighborhoods have seen a measurable drop in crime. We need etiquettes of introduction in order to talk with strangers, and settings in which approach is okay. City Repair is providing those; and it is extending the concept to a larger scale. It helped to create Dignity Village, for example, which is a community of formerly homeless people. People there have built straw bale houses, a kitchen, solar/gas showers, and a garden. Lakeman says it costs three dollars a day for someone to live there, as opposed to sixty a day at a typical shelter. Deal with people as capable rather than defective, and as community builders instead of as isolated integers, and sometimes they will surprise you. City Repair also helped establish the Rebuilding Center, which is a kind of Home Depot for salvaged building materials, fixtures and the like. (It is built largely of such materials itself.) The Center employs some fifty people, all of whom live within a ten minutes’ walk from the store, in a neighborhood where people need these jobs. There are cob benches outside for meetings or just hanging out. This kind of social permaculture is as infectious as its opposite can be. Once people start doing it the idea just spreads. In the Sunnyside neighborhood, which is City Repair’s most active, the local elementary school decided that it wanted to get into the act and become an environmental model. Kids there learn about ecology at each grade, and practice it through the plantings on the school grounds. Other schools have gotten involved as well. There is a belief in America that everything depends upon personal virtue. Virtuous people will create communities, regardless of the physical setting. Megamalls, sprawling suburbs, the isolation booths calls cars - virtue will prevail over all. Virtue certainly can help. But community is not hydroponic. It does not grow in the gaseous air of speechifying about community, or in the virtue of isolated individuals. Community needs settings in which to take root in flourish; it needs commons structures, just as market behavior needs market structures. Some settings are more hospitable than others. Even healthy plants cannot grow in concrete. City repair is creating a new model for breaking up the concrete. If you are in the area and would like to take a look, an ideal time would be the annual Village Building Convergence, when neighbors undertake repair projects all over town. The VBC this year will be May 19–28. For more information check out www.cityrepair.org <http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php> and its VBC page <http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php/projects/vbc>, or call 503–235–8946. http://onthecommons.org/trackback/1131 Julie Ristau
Vertical Farms Discussed on Colbert ReportStephen asks Dickson Despommier if growing food in vertical towers is an elitist way to farm.http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=173624 London Urban Farmer’s Projects and Book “Edible Estates”proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn in cities with “an edible landscape”.Edible Skyscrapers Become “Sky Farms”“The urban farmer: One man’s crusade to plough up the inner city” By Kate Burt
Fritz Haeg isn’t perhaps the obvious representative of a revolution in global farming. As an architecture and design academic and practitioner, the American has had his work exhibited at Tate Modern and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and has taught fine art at several US universities. Yet it is last year’s community-collaborative project on an inner-city council estate in south London that best showcases his current passion: the urban farm. Last April, in a discussion about the global food crisis, Gordon Brown announced: “We need to make great changes in the way we organise food production in the next few years.” High on the list of viable changes is the idea of inner-city agriculture. Which is the theory behind Haeg’s concept, detailed in his new book Edible Estates: it proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn in cities with “an edible landscape”. Last year, to illustrate this point, Haeg was commissioned by the Tate to create a permanent “edible estate” on a triangle of communal grass in front of a housing estate near Elephant and Castle, bordered on two sides by a main road along which London buses thunder every few minutes. The aim was to engage and involve the local residents – and together they miraculously transformed a patch of grass previously favoured by dogs and drunks into a luscious agri-plot housing apple and plum trees, a “forest” of tomato plants, aubergines, squashes, Brussels sprouts, runner beans, sweet peas, a “salad wing”, herbs, edible flowers and 6ft artichoke plants. It is also quite beautiful: “The design was inspired by the ornate, curvy raised flowerbeds you find in front of Buckingham Palace,” explains Haeg. Interestingly, although this space is still accessible by passers-by – unlike the traditional allotment, which Haeg feels is outdated – there has been no theft or vandalism. The London project was mirrored in several locations around the US. “All the projects I do are rooted in the way that an architect thinks and works,” says Haeg. “How we live and the spaces we make for ourselves.” And right now, he believes, we need to re-evaluate exactly that, and urgently so – particularly in our overcrowded cities. As part of its “One Planet Living” initiative, the World Wildlife Fund calculated our average personal carbon footprint in Britain. Perplexingly, it found that food production and its transport accounts for our greatest use of carbon – 23 per cent per person – beating personal transport, home energy and even shared services (the running of schools, hospitals, banks and so on). These results, combined with food shortages and escalating costs – the price of apples and eggs has risen by 30 per cent in the past year – mean action must be taken, says Haeg. Ornamental urban space is a luxury we can no longer afford, he believes: we need to be growing food on our lawns, greens, driveways and even public parks. Haeg is not the only one to think it is time for change. The global Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) strategic alliance estimates that, by 2015, more than half the world’s population will be living in urban areas, provoking one of the greatest challenges in the history of agriculture as we try to find a way to keep a lid on food miles and produce enough food for everyone. “Now, more than ever,” urges Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, “we need to grow more food closer to where people live.” And in this climate, it seems that everyone from town planners to head teachers, TV chefs to agri-entrepreneurs are getting excited about farming food in the big smoke. But is it realistic to turn over our spare urban soil to the cause – and is there really enough of it to do so? Erik Watson, an urban design director at the town-planning company Turley Associates, strongly believes that inner-city agriculture is the future. As such, he is already advising his clients on ways to incorporate farming into their developments and is particularly excited about the potential for transforming existing space enclosed in the traditionally British city structure, the “perimeter block” (a row of buildings constructed around an enclosed, private square – typically divided into private gardens). “Look at an aerial view of London and you’ll see there’s an enormous amount of private open space contained within these blocks. It is perfect for this urban agricultural revolution,” he says. Re-apportioning private space might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Later this month Sustain is hosting a conference, called Growing Food for London, where ideas to be aired include the possibilities of using derelict council facilities, social housing land and unused private gardens for commercial agriculture, as well as the planting of fruit and nut trees in parks and along roads, creating community gardens in public parks and replacing ornamental plants with edible crops. It will also look at alternative food production such as mushroom growing, beekeeping and planting edibles in window boxes, as well as ideas for the little-explored area of rearing livestock in urban areas. While beekeeping is on the rise in British cities – it is estimated that there are 5,000 beehives in London alone – other urban animal-based edibles are rare. Hunting might be the answer here – squirrel meat has already been seized upon as a sustainable, free-range delicacy in rural Cornwall – could it catch on in cities? Might pigeon pie become a Trafalgar Square speciality; has anyone thought of fox cutlets? Perhaps more realistic is organised urban livestock rearing. “There are issues with planning – noise pollution and so on,” says Zeenat Anjani from Sustain, “but you could definitely raise chickens and other small animals. We hope the Growing Food conference will open more people’s minds to these sorts of ideas and get the right people in the same room to talk about what they can do.” Many are already talking about it. Inspired by the “victory gardens” of the First and Second World Wars, when civilians were urged to “dig for victory” to survive the food shortages, Jamie Oliver’s newest venture is to inspire the residents of inner-city Rochdale to eat like our wartime forebears and grow their own, while Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new River Cottage series challenges five Bristol familes to transform a derelict patch of land into a fruitful smallholding. In Middlesborough, the Groundwork South Tees trust has begun an urban-farming education programme to teach people how to cultivate herbs, vegetables and fruit even if they do not have a garden, by providing containers for patios, balconies and windowsills. There are also sustainable-food grants available to those who want to educate others how to produce their own food in cities, and how to compost effectively to improve typically poor-quality urban soil. ‘ If it comes off, perhaps one of the most high-profile initiatives – still at bid stage – is the Feed the Olympics proposal. It is a radical blueprint from several green organisations outlining how 6,000 acres of land in London could be put to work to grow enough food to provide the 14m-odd meals that will be needed during the 60 days of the 2012 Games, instead of importing it. This would involve creating 2,012 new food-growing spaces across the capital, including community gardens, allotments and roof gardens. Revolutionary? In this country, yes – but we’re lagging behind countries such as China, Japan and Cuba, which already have farms integrated into the social, economic and physical structures of their cities; as early as a decade ago Beijing town planners had begun to incorporate agriculture into the urban landscape. The Chinese government also offers courses to aspiring urban farmers and plans to cultivate gardens on nearly 10,000,000sq ft of roof space over the next 10 years. Similarly, Argentina’s Programa de Agricultura Urbana (PAU) was set up to support city-based farmers in the aftermath of the country’s financial collapse. And in Cuba, when the US-led trade embargo resulted in severe food shortages, the government responded by investing in urban farms, providing state-owned plots and teaching relevant skills in schools. But will it work in Britain? Carole Wright, who manages the communal garden created by Haeg in south London, says it already is. “It cost less than £5,000 to create and it is capable of feeding three blocks of flats with 24 households each,” she says. “We run family gardening sessions, Sunday sessions, after-school clubs and also container gardening, so residents can grow things on their balconies too. High- density housing is no barrier – you can grow things out of an old baked-bean can. The more people we can get, the more we can produce. It’s not about the size of the land – it’s about the maintenance.” She has had no shortage of regular, enthusiastic volunteers – surprisingly most of whom are children. Wright was delighted when one girl, a moody teenager who described herself as a “cybergoth”, grew her own beetroot. “You’d never have known she was excited about it,” says Wright, “but I spotted her one evening with her friends, holding the thing in her hands. ‘What are you doing with that?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I grew it – I wanted to show my mates.’ She comes down every day now to water her sunflowers.” It’s not just about financial and health benefits – Wright has also noticed social benefits. “People who have not spoken for five years are suddenly chatting again, discussing what they’ve grown. And it brings together people from different cultures too – they lean over the fence and reminisce about the vegetables they grew in their countries as children – okra, bananas, yams, sweet potatoes.” Wright describes one gardener, an elderly widow, who has planted an almond tree as a memorial to her late husband and says he would have loved to see how the space had been transformed. “One guy has even replaced the photo of his family on his mobile phone with a picture of the garden. It’s given them so much pride.” The impact of the garden has been enormous, says Wright. People from further and further away are coming along to get involved, learn new skills and socialise. “They see it and it’s like a lightbulb and they say, ‘We want our own edible estate.’ Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?” The world’s first edible high-rise The potential of city-based farming could be vastly expanded if we extend upwards as well as using ground-level plots. Of course, one major problem with growing produce on our roofs is the quantities of soil needed, which would add unfeasible amounts of weight. However, hydroponic technology – using nutrient-enriched water instead of soil – could be the solution. Toronto scientist Gordon Graff has created plans for a 58-floor concept building – the SkyFarm – which would grow crops in the heart of the city and could provide enough food for 35,000 people every day. Crops would be irrigated by water recycled through the building’s hydroponic system and, with no soil, many diseases are ruled out – meaning no need for chemical pesticides. Rumours abound of a similar skyscraper farm being developed in Las Vegas. It is said that the 30-storey structure would be not just about agriculture, but would house pigs too – though some have suggested the vertical pork farm could be a hoax. Punchlines on a postcard, please. KB
Urban Farming a Great Success Story in Cubahttp://www.abcnews.go.com/International/comments?type=story&id=5024253 By NIKO PRICE Associated Press Writer
Family Therapists and Surplus SufferingIt is my studied opinion, based on
It is my studied opinion, and my
That a considerable portion of human suffering
Family knots! If it is the case that the earth is the insane asylum
If that is true, then family therapists are surely
When the inescapable imbecilities and
Begin to make us…mad! Family therapists are a noble few
Family therapists are as valuable to our evolution
Family therapists reduce…
Unnecessary suffering. Avoidable suffering. Not all suffering
But enough to warrant
Viva, family therapists! Cool Spring Day
Sacred Soil from Sacred GroundsI have recently been blessed with a gift to urban farmer/gardeners
The bottom of their very large pile of wood chips,
The Quakers used their wood chip pile for an on-site garden
Would it not be a good thing to encourage other spiritual communities
The wood chip pile could be an occasion to educate people about composting
Perfect Spring Morning in Milwaukee
Dancing in the Streets of the U.S.A.In my mind’s eye, we’re dancing the in streets today.
 Perhaps the world’s oldest political party
The dreams of our visionary leaders
The Obama movement
He and his team have loosened
May Obama live a long life!
New Day, Milwaukee Click here for more poetry by Olde Godsil
Worthy New On-Line Publication: “Milwaukee Anthropologist”http://mkeanthro.blogspot.com/ Milwaukee Anthropologist is an experimental publication that seeks to unite voices of enlightened authority from disparate disciplines, engaging a conversation about themes of human import. It supposes that academia need not speak to or within academia to be of value or interest. It seeks to connect these voices with ordinary people, serving those readers who are united in a genuine curiosity about life and living. The magazine begins humbly, with content solicited from writers with some connection to southeastern Wisconsin, and in particular, Milwaukee. Milwaukee is not exactly thought of as any kind of cultural mecca, yet in its own humble way, it is precisely that—a cultural mecca along Lake Michigan. A small big city. A big small town. A mixing place of agricultural heartland and gritty urban reality. A city of neighborhoods, the hub of a thriving metro area. It is a place facing, among other challenges, an identity crisis following the shift away from a manufacturing economy. Therefore, one of the goals of this magazine is to fully respect the modern Milwaukee, as a place with people who care, who are intelligent, who are creative, who work hard, and who live humbly. It is both of and for Milwaukee, both of and for our entire world. Each issue will be structured around a question of a preselected theme, the first of which is What is Life? in the tradition of physicist Erwin Schrodinger. In each issue, writers from various disciplines will respond to the same question in an article of approximately 2,000 to 5,000 words. It is my hope that writers from disciplines as apparently diverse as Anthropology, Art, Engineering, Literature, Music, Philosophy, and Science will prove to have interesting and complementary things to say about topics to be discussed. Discussions will not be restricted to these categories and diverse voices will be welcomed. The idea here is interdisciplinary, but not necessarily in the sense of bringing together two or more disciplines to bear on one subject; rather, I hope to invite distinct and in-depth voices to explore human topics, allowing the reader to become sensitized to the connections within and among those various perspectives expressed. Another goal of this magazine is to provide a way for liberal arts learning to come in contact with the general population, because we live better lives when we consider things from various perspectives—especially perspectives not within our own comfort zones. What we do with what we learn remains up to us. Finally, this online magazine seeks to remind us of two ideas. First, that those with specialized knowledge should not fear to share it. And second, that we can come to a better understanding of the world by recognizing both our human sameness and that there are many different ways of seeking truth. -Michael Timm
May 29, 2008 Willard Scott of the Today Show Calls for Victory Gardens for the PeopleI’m not sure Willard noted that we’d all have a better shot at a 100th birthday party with fresh healthy food from our backyard, frontyard, deck, and rooftop four season kitchen gardens he called, drawing upon America’s proud moment in the 1940s, “victory gardens!” Mandela’s Rooftop Garden While Imprisoned May Have Saved His Body & SoulWhat Would An Obama White House Rooftop Garden Mean For His and Our Bodies and Souls?News has arrived that Mandela struck a deal with his guards and fellow inmates while in prison
What would it mean for Obama, were he and his family to spent 30 minutes a day tending to a kitchen garden
Here’s Mandela’s story from… Peace Grew On His Rooftop: The Roof Garden Story of Nelson Mandela April 27th, 2008 It is said that the mother of innovation is necessity, and in the 21st year of his 27 year imprisonment, legendary peacemaker Nelson Mandela found a way to plant a rooftop garden in the most unlikely of places. In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela describes that “to escape from a monolithic concrete world” he requested to use the prison roof to start a garden. During the day to day struggle towards freedom, Mandela noticed the large empty space bathed in sunlight on the roof of his prison, a perfect place to grow a vegetable garden. Mandela found unlikely investors for his garden; the prison wardens and officers keeping him behind bars. Mandela offered the idea of the rooftop garden to the commanding officer at Pollsmoor prison and requested 16 oil barrels, cut in half, and then, Mandela writes, “the authorities filled them [oil drums] with rich moist soil, in effect 32 giant flowerpots…the wardens gave me seeds of vegetables they liked and I was supplied with excellent manure.” On top of the space that held him captive, Mandela spent two hours each morning working on his roof top garden. He grew onions, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, beans, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries and much more. At its height, Mandela had over 900 plants on his roof top garden. Mandela used the rooftop garden as a common ground for peace, a space that yielded sustenance to feed both prisoners and the authorities alike. In the modern urban world where tall buildings dominate the landscape, it is time again to invest in the rooftop garden, this time as a green peace offering to our environment. Here’s Dorian’s suggestion, from…
Dear Kitchen Gardener, Something is in the air these days and it’s not just the musky, muddy smell of a Maine spring. I don’t know what your senses are picking up, but I’m smelling the fragrant aroma of possibility. Possibility not just for our own gardens, but for gardening in general. A variety of forces - economic, social, culinary, environmental - are gathering and encouraging a new generation of eaters to get closer to and more involved with their food. I don’t want to overstate it; we’re not talking about a full-blown home gardening revolution, at least not yet. Industrially-grown foods from afar are still the norm for most people in wealthy countries. We are, however, seeing the first signs of a home-grown rebellion and - with oil hitting $110/barrell last week- it’s not a moment too soon. I’ve been working hard this past month to spur the kitchen gardening movement along and want to encourage you to get more involved, both in KGI’s community and in your own. In the months and weeks ahead, I’m going to ask you to do different things. For now, though, I’m going to ask you to do just one.
In addition to pitching an article on this topic which ultimately found its way on to the pages of the Washington Post, I’ve posted the idea on the website OnDayOne.org which brings together different ideas that we’d like the next President of the United States to undertake upon taking office. Here’s how I’ve phrased the recommendation: “The next President should announce plans for a food garden on the White House lawn, making one of the White House’s eight gardeners responsible for it, with part of produce going to the White House kitchen and the rest to a local food pantry. The White House is “America’s House” and should set an example. The new President would not be breaking with tradition, but returning to it (the White House has had vegetable gardens before) and showing how we can meet global challenges such as climate change and food security.” By way of background information, this is not so much a new idea as a good old one worth recycling. One of the first things President John Adams did upon moving into the White House in 1800 as its first resident was to plant a vegetable garden. During WWI, President Wilson “hired” a herd of sheep to reduce the costs of maintaining the 18 acres of grounds surrounding the White House. Thousands of dollars were raised for the Red Cross through the auctioning of wool. Years later, Eleanor Roosevelt grew a Victory Garden on the White House lawn, inspiring millions of others to do the same. I don’t know about you, but I think the idea of returning part of the White House lawn to its original, edible splendor is a reasonable request to make of the next “Landscaper-in-Chief”. If you agree, I’d like to ask for your vote. All you need to do is go here: http://www.ondayone.org/node/661 and click on “rate this idea”. Unlike the important vote scheduled for November, anyone of any nationality can vote in this “election”. All we need are 270 more votes to put this idea in the top spot! While you’re there, check out and vote for some of the other bright ideas being proposed for the next President and consider adding one of your own. Thanks for your ongoing interest in and support for our work, Roger Dorian Which State Will Match New York’s Governor’s Mansion With a Kitchen Garden & Compost Pile?NY Executive Mansion runs on local, sustainable, organic agricultureBy Paul Grondahl, Times Union
Eating at the Executive Mansion in Albany is a locavore’s dream. Those who seek out, often obsessively, the fruit of local farmers’ labors and are willing to pay a premium to eat locally grown food would be right at home sampling what executive chef Noah Sheetz and executive director Audra Herman have cooked up at the historic governor’s mansion on Eagle Street. The professional kitchen has become a lean and green operation. They emphasize local products and sustainable, organic agriculture, an initiative begun a year ago by Silda Wall Spitzer and taken up last month by her successor, first lady Michelle Paige Paterson. “It’s so important to have natural, organic food and healthy eating choices,” said Paterson, who runs healthy living and wellness programs for children at HIP Health Plans, a New York City HMO. Paterson, who grew up in Manhattan and Staten Island, recalled fond childhood memories of summer visits to relatives who were farmers in the South. “We have a childhood obesity epidemic in this country in part because of all the fast food and processed food,” she said. She spoke at the mansion following a May Day press conference on the installation of solar panels and other energy-reducing initiatives in an ongoing greening of the mansion effort. These days, locally grown ingredients fill the mansion’s refrigerator, walk-in cooler and pantry. Sheetz grows wheat grass, mustard greens, buckwheat and sunflower sprouts in a greenhouse. They keep a compost pile and use it to fertilize a backyard herb garden and vegetable patch. They canned tomatoes, zucchini and pickled peppers from last summer’s bounty. Which Will Be First State to Offer Tax Breaks for Victory Gardens?Roger Dorian inspired this concept and prose http://www.kitchengardeners.org/http://www.kitchengardeners.org/ Americans love a competition.
Says Dorian… We provide fiscal incentives to people to encourage them to put hybrid cars in their garages and solar panels on their roofs, so why not offer incentives for solar-powered, healthy food production in their backyard?(Editors Note: In Wisconsin we offer tax breaks for owners of historic homes) With wars still waging, food and oil costs rising, and paychecks stretching to the breaking point, now is the time for a home-grown revival. What better way to usher in this revolution than by marrying two great American traditions: vegetable gardening and tax cuts? It wouldn’t be the first time that our country encouraged its citizens to grow some of their own food. The government’s wartime “Victory Garden” campaign was a success by every measure. By 1943, 20 million gardens were growing 8 million tons of food (an amount comparable to that of the nation’s farms) and Americans were eating more healthy fruits and vegetables than ever before. More home gardens would offer us victory not only over rising food and health care costs, but also foreign oil dependency and climate change. Researcher estimate that locally-grown foods use up to 17 times less climate-warming, fossil fuels than foods from away. And when it comes to local foods, it doesn’t get any “localer” than one’s own yard. There are different breaks that local, state and federal governments could offer home gardeners. Sales taxes on seeds, seedlings, fruit bushes and trees could be removed. Better still, an income tax break could be administered as is done with home offices where people measure and deduct the square footage of their houses used for business purposes. The bigger your garden, the better the tax break. Those with no yard could deduct the rental fee for a community garden plot. Dear Kitchen Gardener, From times immemorial, gardeners throughout the world have endured hardships of all kinds: floods, droughts, blights, swarming locusts, and, in the case of Dutch growers, centuries of uncomfortable footwear. As a New England gardener, I have my own share of climate-related challenges, for example trying to keep track of seasons that can change from one hour to the next. For those of you who haven’t been to Maine before, we just recently welcomed the arrival of our fifth season – mud season – which is sandwiched between winter and spring and which helps explain why babies here are born wearing miniature LL Bean boots instead of pink and blue booties. Spring here only starts around May 1st and usually wraps up around May 10th or 15th. For those of you who are curious, Maine’s summer officially starts with the arrival of the first mosquito or Massachusetts tourist, whichever comes first, and ends when all of them, tourists and stinging insects, have left. In celebration of mud season, I am proposing that home growers finally catch a break. Not from bugs, weather, or clunky garden shoes, but from taxes. It’s not as silly an idea as it may sound. We provide fiscal incentives to people to encourage them to put hybrid cars in their garages and solar panels on their roofs, so why not offer incentives for solar-powered, healthy food production in their backyard? With wars still waging, food and oil costs rising, and paychecks stretching to the breaking point, now is the time for a home-grown revival. What better way to usher in this revolution than by marrying two great American traditions: vegetable gardening and tax cuts? It wouldn’t be the first time that our country encouraged its citizens to grow some of their own food. The government’s wartime “Victory Garden” campaign was a success by every measure. By 1943, 20 million gardens were growing 8 million tons of food (an amount comparable to that of the nation’s farms) and Americans were eating more healthy fruits and vegetables than ever before. More home gardens would offer us victory not only over rising food and healthcare costs, but also foreign oil dependency and climate change. Researcher estimate that locally-grown foods use up to 17 times less climate-warming, fossil fuels than foods from away. And when it comes to local foods, it doesn’t get any “localer” than one’s own yard. There are different breaks that local, state and federal governments could offer home gardeners. Sales taxes on seeds, seedlings, fruit bushes and trees could be removed. Better still, an income tax break could be administered as is done with home offices where people measure and deduct the square footage of their houses used for business purposes. The bigger your garden, the better the tax break. Those with no yard could deduct the rental fee for a community garden plot. Tax break or not, I’ll soon be outside fighting climate change, rising food prices, and mosquitoes in my own modest backyard. Last year, my family and I converted our $85 seed order into six months worth of delicious, fresh vegetables. This year, if we’re lucky, that should take us right into winter which in Maine starts in mid November, except for those years when it comes early. Wishing you bountiful harvests and comfortable footwear this season, Roger Dorian Harvard Neuroscientist on Dealing w. Anxiety and AngerA Superhighway to Bliss
“As the child of divorced parents and a mentally ill brother, I was angry,” she said. Now when she feels anger rising, she trumps it with a thought of a person or activity that brings her pleasure. No meditation necessary, she says, just the belief that the left brain can be tamed. JILL BOLTE TAYLOR was a neuroscientist working at Harvard’s brain research center when she experienced nirvana.  AJ Mast for The New York Times Dr. Taylor says the right, creative lobe can be used to foster contentment. But she did it by having a stroke. On Dec. 10, 1996, Dr. Taylor, then 37, woke up in her apartment near Boston with a piercing pain behind her eye. A blood vessel in her brain had popped. Within minutes, her left lobe — the source of ego, analysis, judgment and context — began to fail her. Oddly, it felt great. The incessant chatter that normally filled her mind disappeared. Her everyday worries — about a brother with schizophrenia and her high-powered job — untethered themselves from her and slid away. Her perceptions changed, too. She could see that the atoms and molecules making up her body blended with the space around her; the whole world and the creatures in it were all part of the same magnificent field of shimmering energy. “My perception of physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air,” she has written in her memoir, “My Stroke of Insight,” which was just published by Viking. After experiencing intense pain, she said, her body disconnected from her mind. “I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle,” she wrote in her book. “The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria.” While her spirit soared, her body struggled to live. She had a clot the size of a golf ball in her head, and without the use of her left hemisphere she lost basic analytical functions like her ability to speak, to understand numbers or letters, and even, at first, to recognize her mother. A friend took her to the hospital. Surgery and eight years of recovery followed. Her desire to teach others about nirvana, Dr. Taylor said, strongly motivated her to squeeze her spirit back into her body and to get well. This story is not typical of stroke victims. Left-brain injuries don’t necessarily lead to blissful enlightenment; people sometimes sink into a helplessly moody state: their emotions run riot. Dr. Taylor was also helped because her left hemisphere was not destroyed, and that probably explains how she was able to recover fully. Today, she says, she is a new person, one who “can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere” on command and be “one with all that is.” To her it is not faith, but science. She brings a deep personal understanding to something she long studied: that the two lobes of the brain have very different personalities. Generally, the left brain gives us context, ego, time, logic. The right brain gives us creativity and empathy. For most English-speakers, the left brain, which processes language, is dominant. Dr. Taylor’s insight is that it doesn’t have to be so. Her message, that people can choose to live a more peaceful, spiritual life by sidestepping their left brain, has resonated widely. In February, Dr. Taylor spoke at the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference (known as TED), the annual forum for presenting innovative scientific ideas. The result was electric. After her 18-minute address was posted as a video on TED’s Web site, she become a mini-celebrity. More than two million viewers have watched her talk, and about 20,000 more a day continue to do so. An interview with her was also posted on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and she was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world for 2008. She also receives more than 100 e-mail messages a day from fans. Some are brain scientists, who are fascinated that one of their own has had a stroke and can now come back and translate the experience in terms they can use. Some are stroke victims or their caregivers who want to share their stories and thank her for her openness. But many reaching out are spiritual seekers, particularly Buddhists and meditation practitioners, who say her experience confirms their belief that there is an attainable state of joy. “People are so taken with it,” said Sharon Salzberg, a founder of the Insight Mediation Society in Barre, Mass. “I keep getting that video in e-mail. I must have 100 copies.” She is excited by Dr. Taylor’s speech because it uses the language of science to describe an occurrence that is normally ethereal. Dr. Taylor shows the less mystically inclined, she said, that this experience of deep contentment “is part of the capacity of the human mind.” Since the stroke, Dr. Taylor has moved to Bloomington, Ind., an hour from where she was raised in Terre Haute and where her mother, Gladys Gillman Taylor, who nursed her back to health, still lives. Originally, Dr. Taylor became a brain scientist — she has a Ph.D. in life sciences with a specialty in neuroanatomy — because she has a mentally ill brother who suffers from delusions that he is in direct contact with Jesus. And for her old research lab at Harvard, she continues to speak on behalf of the mentally ill. But otherwise, she has dialed back her once loaded work schedule. Her house is on a leafy cul-de-sac minutes from Indiana University, which she attended as an undergraduate and where she now teaches at the medical school. Her foyer is painted a vibrant purple. She greets a stranger at the door with a warm hug. When she talks, her pale blue eyes make extended contact. Never married, she lives with her dog and two cats. She unselfconsciously calls her mother, 82, her best friend. She seems bemused but not at all put off by the hundreds who have reached out to her on a spiritual level. Religious ecstatics who claim to see angels have asked her to appear on their radio and television programs. She has declined these offers. Although her father is an Episcopal minister and she was raised in his church, she cannot be counted among the traditionally faithful. “Religion is a story that the left brain tells the right brain,” she said. Still, Dr. Taylor says, “nirvana exists right now.” “There is no doubt that it is a beautiful state and that we can get there,” she said. That belief has certainly sparked debate. On Web sites like evolvingbeings.com and in Eckhart Tolle discussion groups, people debate whether she is truly enlightened or just physically damaged and confused. Even her own scientific brethren have wondered. “When I saw her on the TED video, at first I thought, Oh my god, is she losing it,” said Dr. Francine M. Benes, director of the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, where Dr. Taylor once worked. Dr. Benes makes clear that she still thinks Dr. Taylor is an extraordinary and competent woman. “It is just that the mystical side was not apparent when she was at Harvard,” Dr. Benes said. Dr. Taylor makes no excuses or apologies, or even explanations. She says instead that she continues to battle her left brain for the better. She gently offers tips on how it might be done. “As the child of divorced parents and a mentally ill brother, I was angry,” she said. Now when she feels anger rising, she trumps it with a thought of a person or activity that brings her pleasure. No meditation necessary, she says, just the belief that the left brain can be tamed. Her newfound connection to other living beings means that she is no longer interested in performing experiments on live rat brains, which she did as a researcher. She is committed to making time for passions — physical and visual — that she believes exercise her right brain, including water-skiing, guitar playing and stained-glass making. A picture of one of her intricate stained-glass pieces — of a brain — graces the cover of her book. Karen Armstrong, a religious historian who has written several popular books including one on the Buddha, says there are odd parallels between his story and Dr. Taylor’s. “Like this lady, he was reluctant to return to this world,” she said. “He wanted to luxuriate in the sense of enlightenment.” But, she said, “the dynamic of the religious required that he go out into the world and share his sense of compassion.” And in the end, compassion is why Dr. Taylor says she wrote her memoir. She thinks there is much to be mined from her experience on how brain-trauma patients might best recover and, in fact, she hopes to open a center in Indiana to treat such patients based on those principles. And then there is the question of world peace. No, Dr. Taylor doesn’t know how to attain that, but she does think the right hemisphere could help. Or as she told the TED conference: “I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be.” It almost seems like science.
Richard Oulahan: To God do we belong, and to Him we shall returnby Robert Miranda
Modern Western civilization acts contrary to the fundamentals of Humanity. Its evils have come to outweigh its good aspects, its errors and harmful aspects defeat is benefits; and general tranquility and a happy worldly life, the true aims of civilization, have been destroyed by its predatory free market practices. And since wastefulness and extravagance have taken the place of frugality and contentment, and laziness and the desire for ease have overcome endeavor and the sense of service, it has made unfortunate mankind either extremely poor or extremely greedy. Materialism and individualism have impoverished man. Together they’ve destroyed the principle of compassion, frugality and contentment, and increased wastefulness, greed, and covetousness. Together they have opened the way to tyranny and what is unlawful. And through encouraging people to take advantage of the means of rakishness, they’ve cast those needy unfortunates into total idleness. Both have destroyed the desire for effort and work. They have encouraged depravity and dissipation, and wasted their lives on useless things. Furthermore, they’ve made the affluent people ill with the notions of self-preservation at all costs. As the news spread of Richard Oulahan’s death, people from all over started to respond to the news; many of the people of the near Southside sent their condolences and prayers. As time went on, many knew the life of a concerned and kind man has ended. Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 tells us that: “For everything there is a season,
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