Poisoning and Profiteering

A quick photo from Charleston, West Virginia, where I was yesterday.

The local headline, below, is a reminder that law and regulation are why you can drink your local water and eat your local food without fear of poisoning.

Most companies are doing good honest work, but what do we do with those that don't?  

Gresham's law says "Bad money drives out good," but the same is true for conduct. 

If a company can sell a 15-year roofing shingle as a 30-year shingle, competitors are forced to decide whether they will follow suit or go out of business as their competitors rob them of contracts based on knowingly dishonest bids.

And what about companies that engage in reckless disregard of consumer safety by failing to inspect their storage tanks, or which dump effluent into public waterways?  Is it all to be given the Big Wink?

Laws to protect the people from liars, cheats and thieves are supposed to be promulgated by both federal and state governments.  The 10,000 gallons of toxin that leaked into the Elk River last week is a reminder there are still big gaps in law and regulation, and even bigger gaps in enforcement.  Will West Virginia move to bridge those gaps?  Time -- and the state legislature -- will tell.

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Sowing seeds in trays

Frugal vegetable gardening starts with seeds. If they're seeds you've collected yourself from last year's crop, that's even better. If you want to save seeds after every season to plant the following year, you'll need to start with heirloom or open pollinated seeds. F1 seeds will not reproduce true to type. Seed saving is an easy skill to learn and it's vegetable production at its most authentic

Pete Seeger, RIP

The great Pete Seeger has died.  A popularizer of folk music from all over the world, and a troubadour for civil rights, workers equity, and the environment, he was 94.

Back in 1990, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, produced a double album, and one of the songs on it was written by Pete, with lyrics by Lee Hays, who was one of the members of the The Weavers folk group, and who also wrote "If I Had a Hammer," and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine."

The song is entitled In Dead Earnest. Lyrics below:

In Dead Earnest 

If I should die before I wake
All my bone and sinew take
Put them in the compost pile
To decompose a little while
Sun, rain and worms will have their way
Reducing me to common clay
All that I am will feed the trees
And little fishes in the seas
When corn and radishes you munch
You may be having me for lunch
Then excrete me with a grin
Chortling, There goes Lee again
'Twill be my happiest destiny
To die and live eternally

- by Lee Hays, 1981. Lee died August 26 of that same year..

Sowing seeds for the vegetable garden

Food production in the backyard is a simple activity that takes in a few elements of the simple life philosophy. It helps with debt reduction and saving, it encourages sustainability, self-reliance, organisation and preparedness, it helps with food security and waste (compost) and it is one of the things that will help slow you down. I'm really excited about our new season kitchen garden. A

Signs of the Apolcalypse?

In a ceremony that was supposed to highlight the need to end violence in Ukraine, Pope Francis released a pair of doves at the Vatican.

In perhaps an ominous sign of things to come, the doves were immediately attacked by a hooded crow and a seagull.  Please post your best theological explanations in the comments.

A Liability Lawyers Dream

The dual dog retractable leash.  Stupid on a stick, and a disaster on 10 legs.  Lawyers are standing by awaiting your calls!  Thanks to Sarah B. for forwarding this link!

• Related Links:
  ** Step Away from the Flexi and No One Gets Hurt
  ** Knowing What NOT to Do in a Dog Fight

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Fox Hunting as a Virginia Brand

You know you're in Virginia fox hunting country when both the police and the real estate agents brand themselves with it. 

 

Special sauce:  the American foxhound is the state dog.  To be clear, however, this is not the AKC dog, which is one of the rarest dogs in the U.S. due to the lack of utility, but the cross-bred fox hound to be found running in fox packs from one end of Virginia and Maryland to another.

 

Fox hunting in Virginia rarely results in the death of a fox due to the tremendous number of groundhog burrows which provide cover. 

 

In an case, the red fox in these parts is a European import -- one of the dreaded non-native species that we are told (by other descendants non-native Europeans) must be extirpated.