MSNBC and Garden Rant

So if you think you're crazy, you're probably not, right? Really crazy people think they are fine. I learned this bit of wisdom recently on some TV show or other. Last night I had a 500 channels and nothing on moment and ended up watching MSNBC while waiting for Angie Harmon to come on in Rizzoli and Isles on TNT. Fell asleep during the EDshow and woke up with Rachel Maddow. As long as I know the lefty MSNBC is no more "fair and balanced" than Fox News and the other right wing media, I'm still OK, right? Not that I didn't enjoy the bashing of Newt and Mitt, but I understood it as entertainment not news.  Rachel Maddow is no Angie Harmon, by the way, and her ripping Newt for his lobbying connections and greed would have been much more effective without the sarcasm. I think we need to watch out for the people who believe MSNBC or Fox are giving us the "truth."

What the heck is TED? It's a nonprofit started in 1984 to spread "ideas worth sharing." For example, Dr. Christian, the Big History guy who spoke at Stonehill recently did a lecture at a TED conference. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. I'd forgotten about TED until a couple of my students were talking about a TED lecture they had watched as research for Philosophy class. Tried it out last night and watched an interesting 15 minute presentation of algorithms (really!). Checking my sources this morning I came across a garden rant blog about a TED lecture on big agriculture. You can see a really good blog and the link to the TED lecture at this link if you scroll down a little. The manifesto of the four women who do the blog is a hoot. Here is there solution to the agricultural problems suggested in the TED lecture:

1. Change the scale at which agriculture takes place.  Small diverse gardens and farms can produce more food on less land than factory farms, and work in concert with nature, not against it.

2. Substitute human labor for planet-destroying artificial fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery.

3. Listen to the real thinkers, who believe agriculture can be transformed by mimicking natural ecosystems. 

4. Mulch.

  

These are all things we need to think about at Easton's new Agricultural Commission and reminds me that I promised a talk on permaculture awhile ago.