Treeplanting monologue #1

I'm back in Edmonton after most of the last month spent living in a tent in a tree planting camp outside of Hinton, Alberta. I still have one more shift to go, but as it's my father's 80th birthday celebrations tomorrow I'm missing a few days of work. While I was there I recorded some commentaries using the movie option on my Sony digital camera and will be posting them one by one over the next while. Here's the first one. Hope you enjoy.

Last days teaching in Taiwan

This is a compilation of video and still photos that I took during my last week teaching at the elementary school I was working at in Taiwan. Hope you enjoy.

Laos Wedding Dance

Over Chinese New Year I was in SE Asia. One evening while wandering around the town of Muang Sing in northern Laos where I stayed for a few days, I was invited into a wedding aprty that was going on. What an interesting experience. The tables were covered with food (LOTS of sticky rice!), the men were wandering around - if not already passed out in their chairs - trying to get you to drink as much Lao Lao (their traditional liquor - VERY strong!) as possible, while the music (made by a succession of singers along with a guy on a Casio keyboard) blasted out of an enormous PA system at god-awful volume levels: you could here it pretty much all over town. There were a few other foreigners there (a Polish guy, a Japanese couple) who'd also been invited in and so we had some good chats between us, but also with some of the younger people- some of whom spoke surprisingly good English. A good time was certainly had by all. Here's a few video highlights anyways.

Another view of Taiwan

Lasy August I was down in Kaohshiung for a day visiting a friend and while wandering along "The Love Canal" - its actual name - I came across this guy playing the erhu wearing - of all things - a Ramones t-shirt. A rather startling incongruity it was so I recorded a short clip with my camera and posted it on youtube for your enjoyment.

A glimpse into my life

I finally got around to learning how to use iMovie - Apple's movie editing software - and even have something to show for it. This is a compilation of some video and pictures I took a few months ago at a dance competition that was held at the elementary school I work at here in Taichung, Taiwan. Hope you enjoy. My apologies in advance for the sometimes lousy audio/video quality, as well as for the sometimes audible singing along by yours truly...

Taiwanese weirdness

I shot this with my little Sony digital camera last Sunday from my apartment balcony. I think it had something to do with the celebration of the god Matsu, but I'm not at all sure. Strangeness indeed...

Dr. Seuss and Bob Dylan together!

Apparently the original web site has been taken down because of threats of legal action by Dr. Seuss' executors, but two songs can be heard here here. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was 1965-66 era Bob Dylan...

It's been a long time...

Indeed it has. Far too long in fact, so from now on I'm going to try to post something almost everyday - weekdays at least. My work schedule here in Taiwan is weekday afternoons and evenings, plus all day on Saturday, so I should be using at least some of my morning free time to do what I should have been doing a lot more of these last many months - WRITE! I will do my best...

Many thoughts of late, but then where aren't there? One subject in particular is the total contradiction that exists between economic and social conservatives, and the therefore strangeness of their long-term political collaboration. Let me explain. Economic conservatives want less government regulation - ultimately, perhaps, none - favouring instead the guidance of Adam Smith's (in)famous "invisible hand" metaphor. The virtues of capitalism are therefore exalted and its negative consequences either ignored or explained away as being but the inevitable result of the aggregate of individuals' choices.

Social conservatives, on the other hand, are much more in line with the aristocratic conservatism that saw its final effective demise in World War I; trying to hold onto something deemed as perfect and God-ordained in the face of radical social and cultural transformations.

Of course as Marx put it so well, and so many of today's supposed Marxists seem to have forgotten, capitalism is the most revolutionary economic system in history as the means of production are in constant transformation as the bourgeoisie compete among themselves to avoid falling into the ranks of the proletariat.

It speaks volumes as to the myopia of the social conservatives that so many of them see no contradiction between their wish to uphold traditional ways of life with their generally unquestioned support for an economic system that ruthlessly attacks ALL traditional social arrangements. Suburbanization and big-box retailing, exemplified by Wal-Mart, though symptomatic of larger dilemmas, have brought about massive changes to traditional family life. How easily some people who claim to care about such things lose sight of this.

And what of Afghanistan?

[I wanted to write this as a letter to a newspaper on Salt Spring Island, but I couldn't find anyway to do so. Instead I posted it as comment to an article I found on the web site of the Salt Spring News (http://www.saltspringnews.com/index.php?name=News&file=article &sid=14781&thold=0&mode=thread&order=0). It's pretty self-explanatory I think.]

So I am curious as to what the author might propose to solve these problems? At least, compared to many on today's self-described left, Bandow accepts post-9/11 American involvement in Afghanistan - though his describing of it as being "not an easy nation to conquer" while accurate is not really appropriate in this context since the majority of Afghans have no desire to be ruled by the Taliban and no country, especially the USA, has any desire to "conquer" it - but he here refuses to draw the seemingly necessary conclusion: Afghanistan needs more Western military support to enable it to free itself from the possibility of a resurgent Taliban.

While on Salt Spring Island this week, however, I found myself confronted by a poster while in Centennial Park in Ganges. Addressed to those concerned about Canadian involvement in Afghanistan, the poster consisted of a letter that purported to explain the situation. I wish I could quote from it exactly, but paraphrasing from memory will have to here suffice (those of you on S.S. can easily find the original I'm sure).

According to the anonymous author Canada has no business involving itself in Afghanistan. Afghanis have been fighting each other for centuries, that's just what they do, and us being there will only lead to inevitable attacks on Canadians at home and abroad by Taliban sympathizers so an immediate withdrawal of our troops is urgently called for. The author even quotes a high-level Taliban leader as having said that he was disappointed that troops from Canada and the U.K. were beginning to fight like those from the USA (whatever that means), but that if both were to remove their troops from the country immediately no harm would befall citizens from either country. Describing this as a "generous" offer, the poster's author urged that it should be accepted.

I have always loved the Gulf Islands ever since I first visited them while hitchhiking alone when I was 17 and am therefore saddened to see such rascist and reactionary sentiments expressed in a place that has always seemed to be such a model of progressive thinking in action. That Afghanistan has suffered years of war is unfortunately correct, but to label its people as being inherently warlike - barbarians essentially - is to engage in the most despicable of stereotyping. That what happens in Afghanistan is "of no concern to us" reveals the dangerous results of the unhinged cultural relativism that sadly plagues far too many and that stands in sharp contrast to the progressive left of the past. And that anyone could even think to consider offers made by the Taliban - that pinnacle of reactionary religious fascism under whose rule the majority of Afghanis lived for far too long: music being banned, women as virtual slaves, stonings and beheadings usual punishments for adultery and homosexuality, ancient statues of the Buddha destroyed for "idolatry" among other things - as being anything to consider seriously is truly frightening.

July 17 of this year marks the 70th anniversary of the revolt by Nationalist troops that began the Spanish Civil War that ended in 1939 with the Fall of Madrid and the beginning on Franco's fascist dictatorship. During this time over 40,000 mostly men, but some women, left their homes in countries around the world to fight, and often die, to help save the Republic and stem the rise of fascism. For them, and for the left traditionally, injustice anywhere meant injustice everywhere. For them, one should not hide behind national walls to say "it's none of my business" because people everywhere should be free to determine their own fate. Indeed for them, isolationism and lack of concern for those in other countries were the hallmarks of the very reactionary fascism that the progressive left was meant to oppose. How things have changed.

Is militarism a problem in the world? Most certainly. But one does not intelligently oppose the excessive spending and focus on military means by opposing any military actions whatsoever. It has always struck me as acutely ironic that the majority of whom are most concerned about American intrusions into Canadian sovereignty also seem to be the most against increased military spending; having the practical effect of leaving Canada ever more dependent on America for its defence. As to Afghanistan, this country needs Canada's help in many ways; one being fighting and killing those who wish to again subjugate it to a barbaric, tyrannical regime. There is sometimes no room for compromise, when to fight, kill and perhaps die is the unfortunate but necessary course to take. This is certainly the case with the Taliban as it was against fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan. We forget history at our own peril.

All about food

In this month's issue of Mother Jones magazine (and available online at http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/05/no_bar_code.html) is a very interesting article on an evangelical Christian organic farmer who lives and works in Pennsylvania - with a difference. The organic food industry has grown enormously over the last 10 years, but it's debatable how much of a good thing this atually is.

I’d heard a lot about the quality of the meat raised on [this] “beyond organic” farm, and was eager to sample some. Salatin and his family raise a half-dozen different species (grass-fed beef, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rabbits) in an intricate rotation that has made his 550 hilly acres of pasture and woods in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley one of the most productive and sustainable small farms in America. But when I telephoned Joel to ask him to send me a broiler, he said he couldn’t do that. I figured he meant he wasn’t set up for shipping, so I offered to have an overnight delivery service come pick it up.

“No, I don’t think you understand. I don’t believe it’s sustainable—‘organic,’ if you will—to FedEx meat all around the country,” Joel told me. “I’m afraid if you want to try one of our chickens, you’re going to have to drive down here to pick it up.”

This man was serious. He went on to explain that Polyface does not ship long distance, does not sell to supermarkets, and does not wholesale its food. All of the meat and eggs that Polyface produces is eaten within a few dozen miles or, at the most, half a day’s drive of the farm—within the farm’s “foodshed.” At first I assumed Joel’s motive for keeping his food chain so short was strictly environmental—to save on the prodigious quantities of fossil fuel Americans burn moving their food around the country and, increasingly today, the world. (The typical fruit or vegetable on an American’s plate travels some 1,500 miles to get there, and is frequently better traveled and more worldly than its eater.) But after taking Joel up on his offer to drive down to Swoope, Virginia, to pick up a chicken, I picked up a great deal more—about the renaissance of local food systems, and the values they support, values that go far beyond the ones a food buyer supports when he or she buys organic in the supermarket. It turns out that Joel Salatin, and the local food movement he’s become an influential part of, is out to save a whole lot more than energy.

The whole article is fascinating, but especially so in relation to the opinions of the well-known (to some anyways) ethicist Peter Singer. In an article/interview on Salon.com (at http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/05/08/singer/ and requires watching of a brief advertisement) Singer argues against the very ideas of local food that Joel Salatin and other usual advocates of organic food usually so cherish; based on his utilitarian ethical principles.


In your book you say that socially responsible folks in San Francisco would do better to buy their rice from Bangladesh than from local growers in California. Could you explain?
This is in reference to the local food movement, and the idea that you can save fossil fuels by not transporting food long distances. This is a widespread belief, and of course it has some basis. Other things being equal, if your food is grown locally, you will save on fossil fuels. But other things are often not equal. California rice is produced using artificial irrigation and fertilizer that involves energy use. Bangladeshi rice takes advantage of the natural flooding of the rivers and doesn't require artificial irrigation. It also doesn't involve as much synthetic fertilizer because the rivers wash down nutrients, so it's significantly less energy intensive to produce. Now, it's then shipped across the world, but shipping is an extremely fuel-efficient form of transport. You can ship something 10,000 miles for the same amount of fuel necessary to truck it 1,000 miles. So if you're getting your rice shipped to San Francisco from Bangladesh, fewer fossil fuels were used to get it there than if you bought it in California.

In the same vein, you argue that in the interests of alleviating world poverty, it's better to buy food from Kenya than to buy locally, even if the Kenyan farmer only gets 2 cents on the dollar.
My argument is that we should not necessarily buy locally, because if we do, we cut out the opportunity for the poorest countries to trade with us, and agriculture is one of the things they can do, and which can help them develop. The objection to this, which I quote from Brian Halweil, one of the leading advocates of the local movement, is that very little of the money actually gets back to the Kenyan farmer. But my calculations show that even if as little as 2 cents on the dollar gets back to the Kenyan farmer, that could make a bigger difference to the Kenyan grower than an entire dollar would to a local grower. It's the law of diminishing marginal utility. If you are only earning $300, 2 cents can make a bigger difference to you than a dollar can make to the person earning $30,000.

What to make of these conflicting viewpoints? For Salatin and other advocates of the importance of local food, its value is simply not reducible to a question of simply to whom the profit goes, as Singer does. This is, of course, the problem with utilitarian ethics; necessarily relying on quantification, and disregarding as meaningless that which cannot be so portrayed, to solve ethical dilemnas. The value of food as part of an active web of individual relationships based on sustainable agricultural practices becomes metaphysical mumbo-jumbo in comparison to the "fact" that poor countries in the world can grow food cheaper than rich countries. The utilitarian ethical calculus therefore demands that rich countries should import as much food as possible from poor countries, irrespective of their own agricultural capacities, as a way of alleviating poverty.

More later...