economy v. ecology

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/world/europe/15russia.html?ref=europe

Class Farewell

What a semester it has been! We have travel all through this continent (I originally put "of ours" at the end of the line, but decided not to). I'm really happy that we ended with Bayou Farewell. I don't think it was just because it's closest or most relatable to us; I felt that it wrapped everything we've been talking about the whole semester into one. The idea of place, home, identity, land, human-nature relationship, and so much more. I think even though we live so close to the bayous, none of us have really seen or heard of the bayou quite like this before. I got so attached to this Cajun story and so invested in all the characters and I wanted to know what happened to them or how things turned out. I love their relationship and understanding of the lands. There is a great respect for the land and closeness with it. They know this is their place, this is their 'home'. They know what is happening to the marshes, but they don't know any other life, it is the only life they want. They are so aware of what is going on, and know that it is happening so fast that their children won't see some of the land they saw as a child. I liked the dynamics of all people Tidwell visited because there were a variety of them from the Cajuns, Native Americans, and the Vietnamese. Each person treated and connected with the land differently, but they all had the same understanding of its lost. That leaves the question of us. We are also a part of this land, especially since we are that close to it. What do we do and how can we help reduce the marsh loss? I think after this class we have seen our place in this world more clearly and understand the intricate relationship humans and nature has. We are all more conscious of our actions which is a great start so we can continue to grow and move further.

Egg-Shaped Green House

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this! It's super amazing and everything we would love. An architecture student in China built a six foot high egg house from bamboo strips, wood pieces, sacks, and grass patches. It's solar power and he can fit it on the sidewalk! Too amazing. Check it out.

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/beijing-architect-lives-in-egg-shaped-house-on-sidewalk-2425090/#photoViewer=6

in it together

I have been thinking back to our last discussion, and how the question was proposed as to why environmental issues should be approached from the angle of literature; what is its benefit over the less-meandering, more direct scientific route; etc... The idea of the importance of environmental studies belonging in an interdisciplinary arrangement has been brought into my awareness repeatedly recently. I just finished reading Unscientific America for my Environmental Communications course- itself an interesting blend of counter-intuitively compatible academic domains- which addressed the need for the science and mass culture to merge once again in order to address the urgent environmental situations we face. The book is a proponent of broadening the role of scientists to include public outreach and include in their training "receiver-oriented communication skills" (as opposed to source-oriented), meaning most basically that the language with which the information be shared not resemble babble to a layman. Scientists should be versed in the ways of politics, popular media and entertainment (all of which they traditionally mistrust or underestimate the capacity of) in order to make their message readily accessible to all, not just those who already share their common interest. Narrowing this argument in application to our question of the study of environmental issues in literature, the reasoning is much the same. For those not very receptive to science, as many are who study the humanities, even going as far as thinking the two fields incompatible or opposite, there needs to be an array of mediums that resonate the same foundational message: that there is no escaping the intricate entwinement of man and nature (in matter, mind, and spirit), to even hold the two words separate is nonsensical, and the acknowledgement of this inseparability implies immediate responsibility on our part. Our false sense of separation and subsequent ways of living is a holistic problem, and while environmental science may highlight its symptoms, studies in literature, religion, philosophy, etc. may better address the underlying anthropocentric misconceptions and values that brought about those symptoms. We will not heal the earth back to its full potential health by restoring the land grass stalk by stalk on our bellies in the muck (though small symbolic actions for hope are certainly important), we must understand why we weakened it by stripping it bare and injecting it with poisons to begin with. So just as much as scientific understanding yielding technological innovation may be part of the solution to working our way out of this mess, so is a long look inward to try to identify where our consciousness strayed from perceiving truth. Good luck everyone...search hard and don't forget what we've dug up so far. The answers are right under our feet.

PS Here's what Pollan Said:

Courtney: Many thanks for the note and the suggestions, which I look forward to reading and digesting. Warm regards and gratitude to your students. Michael

--------Original Message----------
Sent Thursday, Dec. 9 2010

Greetings, Dr Pollan!

We hope you are well! As this semester draws to a close, we
feel sad to be putting in our final Journal entries of the
Food Rules we have been keeping this semester. However, I
know that I, for one, have been greatly impacted by your
book and will not stop practicing the Rules that I have
personally adopted and kept over the course of this
semester; moreover, I cannot wait for the next edition!

Per your suggestion, some of our students came up with a few
ideas that we would be honored if you would consider for
your next book. I've attached them in the form of a Word
Document; please let me know if you have any trouble opening
the file.

Thank you again for all of your positive influence on us
this semester! Thanks too for checking out our Blog, and for
offering us the opportunity to contribute ideas to your next
book!

Have a blessed Holiday season!

Warmly,
Courtney M. Morris
Representative of "Green Literature" ENGLA394

So I just want to say

That I am going to miss all of you!
This semester has truly been great and by far I must say my favorite book(s) were Food Rules and Bayou Farewell. I feel that each student brought so much to the class and while it was really challenging to work through all of the problems we encountered over the course of the semester, it was also really great to be able to work through them with all of you.

And in the words of Joe Dirt... (No pun intended... dirt = land = joe = man... get it? ;) "Keep on keepin' on!"

Court

the mesh?

Ilha das Flores

The Isle of Flowers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpKWK2dxgb4

Personal Blog

I always feel so shy about these types of things!
But here is my personal blog--it's a tumblr account. If you've never used one before, I highly reccomend it. Tumblr is so easy to use, and it's great for personal use, kind of like a photo/video diary.
Nature Is a Haunted House

Hey Kids!

At least the kids are getting some good info!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_lMUwZr6o&feature=youtube_gdata

"Down de Baya"

What I found most striking about the novel Bayou Farewell thus far is the incredible loss Cajuns have experienced, and will continue to experience, as marshland decresases rapidly. I would feel perhaps less sorry if this were occuring due to a natural phenomenon like the effects of a hurricane etc. The fact that the main contributors to this problem are the levees trapping the waters of the Mississippi and the oil companies is sickening. I recognize the reason for building the levees (to control flooding and save lives) but this raises the question in my mind: to what extent is it acceptable for humans to interfere with nature in their own interests, especially when it conflicts with the interests of another culture or group of people in society? I realize that the flooding of the Mississippi costs people their lives and I'm sure I might feel differently if it were my family's house at stake or my family members dieing in the flood, but it just seems unnatural and crazy to change the climate of the delta so that people can live along the Mississippi without fear of flooding. That's what the Missiippi does, it floods, and the Bayou climate and continuation of that culture is dependant on the rich sediment from the flooding. Did anyone consider the long term effects this would have on the Bayou? Or did someone decide that its worth it to cause the death of a culture dependant on the flooding of the Mississippi in order to enable people to live along the river in safety? For some reason I had more faith in the foresight of the government and I can't imagine they didn't anticipate these consequences, but I guess in retrospect that sounds naieve too.

Relation

As I mentioned in our last class, I find it very interesting what we think or say we are related to. The whole notion of relation is an interesting one to me. We chose to read Bayou Farewell last because it was what was closest to us as well as what we could relate most to. While I agree with the first part, I don't necessarily think we can for the later. While many have lived in Louisiana their whole life, I don't know how many have lived down in the Bayou or the lives of these Cajun shrimpers. We all live with electronics to play with, roads to drive on, fast food for late night munchies and mall and bouquets to shop at. We can get to all these places by streetcar or our own car. We go back to dorms or house that aren't on stilts. These people live a life that is based on the land and the focus on their craft, shrimping or crabbing. While I understand the concepts of the bayou sinking and the livelihood of people disappearing as well. I understand the terrible thing that is happening in the state I live in but I cannot truly understand these people's struggles and daily lives. The understanding I have of the stories in the text are ones that I have experiences through meeting people that lives this way or in relation to things in my own life; I often think of distant relatives in Mexico that live solely on land too. It is strange that we often use relate to mean understand conceptually. While I understand the stories being told by my own personal experiences and through reading the text, I do not actually relate though. I began to think of the things that I say I relate to and where I am correct and incorrect. I often say that I can relate to people that are second generation whatever-American personally being Mexican-American. Though in reality, all I have in common is the number generation. I might share some of the experience, but I really don't know the lives that person has lived due to their being second-generation. This also made me think of when someone tells you "oh I have that same shirt except it is navy, has buttons and is long sleeve." So basically this is nothing like your shirt at all? There are certainly times that I say can relate to something and truly can. I can relate to someone who went to an all-girls Catholic school, then went to a Catholic University and joined a sorority. In nature and our experiences learning about it, I find we often times say "I can relate" though we really can just understand. When someone tell us of a trip somewhere, we say we can relate because we too have been somewhere else in that same country. When looking at pictures of a park, we say we can relate because we have been to a park in our hometown too. Coming back to a concept we talked about in the beginning of the semester and still struggle with is that words are not useful or conducive to describing our experiences or nature. Words are such static things and our experiences and nature is anything but. We have to be so careful with words. I know I will be especially careful to what I can I can relate to know or what I simply understand.

NASA Takedown.

So I and Sarah have both posted information on the existence of arsenic-based life as discovered by NASA. Turns out the methodology of this study is being questioned: see here, and also here.

For information on how NASA is handling the criticism (short answer: badly), see here.

Words cannot describe how ridiculously disappointed I am, both in my hopes about arsenic-based life (see my earlier post update about life on Venus) and in the integrity of an organization which was a pioneer in science for many years, and which represents a nation which was a pioneer in science for many years and is falling behind. What an embarrassment. Somewhere a Chinese chemist is laughing at us.

I'm sure someone will eventually redo the study, and I look forward to the day. Unscrupulous methods don't necessarily invalidate a hypothesis.

Strange Finding: Aliens Among Us

I read the most interesting article today. A team of scientists from NASA have discovered a new life form in Mono Lake, California. It is a bacteria called GFAJ-1 that uses the poison arsenic to compose its DNA and cell membranes. Every other life form on Earth is composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. This changes what we view as alive. The mesh is becoming bigger and bigger!

http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

Jill's Alaska

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdMmTHuizbI

"Even people that will never venture north seem to take great comfort in its possibilities."

Ring a bell?

"I think this question of perspective as travelers is important to think about. What we see depends on what we expect to see, what we want to see, what we've seen before. The value of travel is that it takes us outside of ourselves, and also deeper within. It reminds us that all places are connected to all other places."

I like her recognition here of how an experience of a place is completely contingent on the self through which that experience is being filtered. Such differences in Selves explain the differences in preferences among the students in the class for the different regions we read of in all the books. (I do think Tien was onto something here, about how perhaps it was not the narrators that some did not like in the case of Abbey or Fredston but how the narrative tone reflected the landscape,)

An interesting land ethic could be one based on travel. I am reminded again of Emerson's invisible floating eye, a sensation of combined anonymity or omnipresence I have felt on the road and in somehow being somewhere where the self is unacknowledged by outsiders, that place becomes like Morton's "anywheres".

For some reason...

This made me think of our class.

The idea that life can be composed of other elements... well, it seems to fit with Tim Morton's theory nicely. If life can be made out of arsenic, why not metal? Or data? Or anything, really?

Life is weird.

EDIT: It gets weirder. And you thought there couldn't possibly be life on Venus.

Extremes and Land Ethics

First, it just seems like we have issues with the extreme because some people didn't really like Desert Solitaire and some of us don't care for Rowing to Latitude and both of these books were set in extreme environments. I don't know what is it, was it more of the landscape that related to their character, but both authors have drawn some displease from the class. I found Abbey dry and vast like the desert he was in and I can't say too much for Fredston because I didn't finish her book yet, but it wasn't too bad, though the back and forth of her life and the Arctic can be annoying sometimes. I just found how it was funny the two books with the two most extreme environments we had the most issues with.

As for my Land Ethics, when I was writing it, I think I got lost in the idea of the other, in which I mean my audience. I was having a tough time on how I wanted to go about it because it was hard writing my opinion on my own land ethics, but trying to find others to support my idea. Then there was the question of who I should be addressing or even if I should be addressing anyone. The ethic was hard to write because you sometimes have too much to say and trying to articulate it in a way that supports your stand and is understandable for others. I had a lot of issues of trying to be precise about what my ideas were or what I wanted to convey and how to go about it. There still a lot to think about even after I was done because sometimes you just feel like you don't do your mind and heart justice on paper or with words.

My NEW ORLEANS

...Not my Louisiana. I can take or leave Louisiana, honestly; it's New Orleans I love.

I'm in a sort of Christmasy mood ('tis Advent! O come O come, Emmanuel!), so here are a couple of my favorite city Christmas traditions:

Caroling

This is caroling in Jackson Square. I and a few of my friends (and the rest of the city) go to sing carols in front of the cathedral, which is lit up for the occasion. Usually the city isn't too touristy; people usually like to remain where they come from round Christmastime. We mainly run into locals. It's a beautiful tradition, and afterwards we (along with the rest of the city) go to get beignets at Café Du Monde, which are ridiculously delicious when you've been standing out in the cold.

Celebration in the Oaks

City Park during Christmas season. Used to be called "Christmas in the Oaks," but, you know, we have to be politically correct. Celebration is a prettier word, anyway.

The park is lit up. You bring your friends/family, pig out on candy apples and funnel cake (oh, delicious funnel cake), and ride rides. When you get tired of riding rides, you go look at the pretty lights and the traditional train set. Then you go back and ride more rides.

This is possibly my favorite holiday tradition. Since New Orleans is New Orleans and very few people ever leave, I usually run into people I went to high school, grade school, middle school, gymnastics camp, debate tournaments, various community theater productions... you get the idea, they're all here. Most people I know didn't go very far for college, because, I mean, New Orleans.

After Christmas, we have

KING CAKE ZOMG.

I probably don't have to explain what this is, but just in case: this is a traditional McKenzie's king cake. McKenzie's was everyones favorite bakery for a very long time, but the guy who owned it died and the people who bought it had some sort of financial trouble... not exactly clear on the story, but the important thing is that I will never again eat their turtles or jelly doughnuts. My life is a tragedy.

I WILL, however, have a chance to eat their spectacular king cake. You can buy king cake basically anywhere in New Orleans, but people who've lived here for a while will walk through hell for a McKenzie's king cake. You can usually buy one somewhere. They're a legend.

King cakes, for those of you who locked yourselves in your room throughout the month of February last year, are a delicious tradition which the original New Orleanians brought from France, though the recipe has been... altered significantly. The original actually looked like a crown. King cake season runs from the twelth day of Christmas, Epiphany (or Three Kings Day), to Mardi Gras, and for this period of time they are EVERYWHERE. In the picture of the king cake above, you can see a little pink arm sticking out from behind the bottom green segment of the cake.. that's the little plastic baby Jesus that goes in the cake. Finding the baby is a BIG DEAL when you're a kid. When I and my cousins were young my grandmother would keep plastic babies in her kitchen and stick one in each of our pieces of cake so that no one would feel left out.

I could go on forever.. one of the nice things about living in New Orleans is there's always some sort of festival or seasonal food or other wonderful circumstance occurring. But we're about to get to CRAWFISH SEASON and it would take me pages and pages to express the wonder that is CRAWFISH SEASON HOLY SMOKES so I'll stop here.

my louisiana

http://www.flickr.com/photos/loyolanola/4583988483/in/set-72157623862108188/

Land Ethic Photography

*These are a couple of my personal photography projects expressing my image of Nature. Through the emotion of art, I envision my Land Ethic.

Drumcliffe, 2010

Telemachus, 2010

World, 2009

louisiana

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://thomashoven.com/p2002_031_b83f.jpg&imgrefurl=http://thomashoven.com/3121_usa2.html&usg=__I7Lq9frvmiamK853xdNOsuQ6yWc=&h=540&w=720&sz=65&hl=en&start=0&sig2=2taW-gXBtqOrYCxfzH97Iw&zoom=1&tbnid=oGbSrODwAn2RRM:&tbnh=161&tbnw=199&ei=d773TOjnAsP7lwfIh8GQAg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dswamp%2Blouisiana%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1252%26bih%3D650%26tbs%3Disch:10,1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=952&vpy=90&dur=2443&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=120&ty=101&oei=Ob73TL7eDsOC8gbB6ey1Bw&esq=10&page=1&ndsp=15&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0&biw=1252&bih=650

Is anything really Free anymore?

Wow, does this remind anyone of the days in which they gave land to the Settlers to help drive progress West? Is our economy that bad? Perhaps it is. What's old is new again...

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/7-towns-where-land-is-free.html