To Gavin the physicist, the electric car is just plain stupid. The new Nissan Leaf has a battery that costs Nissan, the car manufacturer itself, $15,600. The car has a range of 100 miles, costs $33,000, and requires the owner to install a $2,000 charging station in his home garage, where the car will be plugged in for 8 hours after going its 100 miles. Contracts have been let for the installation of thousands of these charging stations in the United States.
The equivalent-sized car would be the Nissan Versa, which costs less than half the Leaf. Not only that, but the carbon footprint of the Versa is smaller than that of the Leaf by a factor of 2.
Rare earths, today's hottest topic, figure in as well. The rare earths that go into the Leaf's battery are in short supply. China, the main producer, is threatening a set of severe export restrictions. Surprise. ("What a golden opportunity! We'll hold the world ransom while we can.") No recycler in the United States is yet handling such batteries, so they will end up in the landfill; and the rare earths in them will be wasted.
The much-ballyhooed Chevrolet Volt, at $41,000, has given up being an electric car and has put in a gas engine--to make it just another hybrid. Why "just another"? Because it goes only 50 miles on battery power. Gavin's favorite program, Top Gear, tested a Nissan Prius against an 8-cylinder BMW 5 Series at highway speeds. The Prius got 17.6 miles to the imperial gallon; the BMW got 22.
If all this sounds rational to you, raise your hand.
Meantime throughout Europe and in California there are hydrogen cars. The hydrogen itself is made at the gas station, so it does not have to be transported in tanker trucks along crowded highways. The Honda Clarity has been available since 2008, going over 300 miles on a fill. Its price tag is higher than the standard Honda, but it is available in this nation on lease for $600 a month. 2010 marked the tenth consecutive year the Clarity was the pace car for the Los Angeles Marathon. The effluent from hydrogen-fueled cars is water.
Iceland has decided that in the near future all its vehicles shall run on hydrogen. Its fleet of public-transport buses are already converted.
The key to the hydrogen car is the fuel cell and the availability of hydrogen. If the United States spent as much money on fuel-cell research as it is spending on battery research--$15 billion--we could all be driving hydrogen cars. How long will it be before a smart inventor makes hydrogen car rechargers for home use? It ain't rocket science!
Bash head here,
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Trends that Make Us Crazy, or When Technology Sucks
Yvonne writes : Malaria
Sometimes we are so frustrated with today's life that we could climb the walls, so you troops are gonna get the brunt of our thinking.
There's yet another annual malaria-spasm going on in the World Health Organization and all the other hand-wringing letterheads. Recent reports worldwide show that there may be a half-million malaria deaths per year in India and Africa. For a time the use of bed nets had a dramatic impact on lowering the malaria rate--however, the mosquitoes have learned; now they're waking up to bite earlier in the evenings and even later in the mornings. Hence the advantage of the bed net technology, simple though it was, is fading fast.
The other main technology against malaria is the spraying of powerful insecticides--toxins--that kill all insects, good, bad, and indifferent. "Malaria is a bad thing," the hand-wringers all lament, "so let's throw poisons everywhere to kill the naughty mosquitoes that carry it from one person to another. What the heck? If the poisons kill all the good insects: the pollinators, the butterflies, the bees, everything within reach, so what? We can do big drama, spend big bucks, grandstand and strike attitudes full time, all to show what virtuous, important, essential, crusading heroes we are. First things first."
And yet.
Here's today's reality smack: That same heroic spraying reduces the population of bats and birds that rely for their very survival on the vast variety of insects.
Have you heard of bats? Of hummingbirds? Of purple martins? Of swallows? Of frogs and toads? Of dragonflies? Of gambusia minnows--surface feeders that think larvae are nummy?
All these creatures and many more are eager--eager--to find mosquitoes and eat them. Such creatures do not need annual renewal. They do not spread toxins. They do not demand benefits. They do not march for early retirement. They simply want (and deserve) to live as part of the Mother's natural cycle.
The suits, on the other hand, under whatever letterhead, seek to justify their bloated paychecks by trumpeting their strenuous activities in the anti-malaria effort. How stupid can you get? Instead of killing off the bats and birds and other creatures with toxins, how about having massive breeding programs for them and constructing inexpensive bat- and bird-houses?
Sometimes we are so frustrated with today's life that we could climb the walls, so you troops are gonna get the brunt of our thinking.
There's yet another annual malaria-spasm going on in the World Health Organization and all the other hand-wringing letterheads. Recent reports worldwide show that there may be a half-million malaria deaths per year in India and Africa. For a time the use of bed nets had a dramatic impact on lowering the malaria rate--however, the mosquitoes have learned; now they're waking up to bite earlier in the evenings and even later in the mornings. Hence the advantage of the bed net technology, simple though it was, is fading fast.
The other main technology against malaria is the spraying of powerful insecticides--toxins--that kill all insects, good, bad, and indifferent. "Malaria is a bad thing," the hand-wringers all lament, "so let's throw poisons everywhere to kill the naughty mosquitoes that carry it from one person to another. What the heck? If the poisons kill all the good insects: the pollinators, the butterflies, the bees, everything within reach, so what? We can do big drama, spend big bucks, grandstand and strike attitudes full time, all to show what virtuous, important, essential, crusading heroes we are. First things first."
And yet.
Here's today's reality smack: That same heroic spraying reduces the population of bats and birds that rely for their very survival on the vast variety of insects.
Have you heard of bats? Of hummingbirds? Of purple martins? Of swallows? Of frogs and toads? Of dragonflies? Of gambusia minnows--surface feeders that think larvae are nummy?
All these creatures and many more are eager--eager--to find mosquitoes and eat them. Such creatures do not need annual renewal. They do not spread toxins. They do not demand benefits. They do not march for early retirement. They simply want (and deserve) to live as part of the Mother's natural cycle.
The suits, on the other hand, under whatever letterhead, seek to justify their bloated paychecks by trumpeting their strenuous activities in the anti-malaria effort. How stupid can you get? Instead of killing off the bats and birds and other creatures with toxins, how about having massive breeding programs for them and constructing inexpensive bat- and bird-houses?
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Update Witch's Ball
After the disappointing cancellation of the ball in Radford, we are now able to confirm that we will be attending a Witches' Ball at the UU in Charleston WV on the 30th of October.
There we will be teaching Argentine Tango and giving a short workshop.
It's a dress-up affair with prizes for costumes.
SEE YOU THERE.
Gavin and Yvonne
There we will be teaching Argentine Tango and giving a short workshop.
It's a dress-up affair with prizes for costumes.
SEE YOU THERE.
Gavin and Yvonne
schedule
Hi, guys and girls.
We will get back to work on blog-think eventually. This is just to tell you that the Witches' Ball in Radford VA, set for October 30, has been canceled. You'll just have to do what we do : dress up like Christians and go trick-or-treating. Have fun. Don't do anything we wouldn't do. BB GY
Yvonne's PS If you have scheduled on October 31 a spiritual-type event in observance for Samhain, don't come within range of my sticklerism and codger-hood or I'll give you a real reality-smack. You're scheduling your observance by some pope's calendar??! Do what I do. Consult the Old Farmer's Almanac in your bathroom and observe that this year's full moon nearest October 31 occurs on October 22. THAT's when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. That's when I hope you will open your spirit to whatever the Guides and Elder Ones choose to let you have.
Do have pleasure in the spiritual experience that may come. BB
We will get back to work on blog-think eventually. This is just to tell you that the Witches' Ball in Radford VA, set for October 30, has been canceled. You'll just have to do what we do : dress up like Christians and go trick-or-treating. Have fun. Don't do anything we wouldn't do. BB GY
Yvonne's PS If you have scheduled on October 31 a spiritual-type event in observance for Samhain, don't come within range of my sticklerism and codger-hood or I'll give you a real reality-smack. You're scheduling your observance by some pope's calendar??! Do what I do. Consult the Old Farmer's Almanac in your bathroom and observe that this year's full moon nearest October 31 occurs on October 22. THAT's when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. That's when I hope you will open your spirit to whatever the Guides and Elder Ones choose to let you have.
Do have pleasure in the spiritual experience that may come. BB
Saturday, October 2, 2010
When is enough enough?
It seems to us that American culture reached its optimum point in about 1960. There was no need for any household to have two jobs: a small house with 2.2 children and one car seemed adequate. Since that time the god Mammon has gradually eroded our lifestyle and the American dream has become ever more swollen. Now we feel denied, underprivileged, if we don’t have
* two cars, one of them a monster battlefield weapon,
* a pantry jammed full of synthetic obese-making “foods”,
* at least two computers per family member ((not to mention all those little personal devices including death-dealing thumb games, obsolete or replaced in a week, flogged by the electronics empires, and
* a wall-filling TV 8 feet by 10 feet and ½ inch thick--whose offerings consist largely of mind- numbing drivel.
All this together with a multi-bedroomed house on a green quarter-acre of perfectly groomed lawn.
Paying for such a lifestyle requires at least two working adults per family, though with each passing year those two adults are earning less and less in real terms. The separation between incomes of the middle class and of the rich has widened to such an extent that (in our opinion) the United States has passed what is called the tipping point.
It looks as if it will continue to get worse with more people demanding more and more, though less able to afford it; paying for it all over a lifetime with the “aid” of broken financial institutions that will charge higher and higher percentages if you are to support your self-indulgent, over-consuming life style.
It may be difficult for you troops to believe this, but we Frosts live on Social Security, on less than $1,300 a month. We occupy a pleasant little house 100 years old and drive a reasonable car that’s only four years old. Our estate, “Gingerbread House”, is a city lot measuring 44 feet by 150 feet. At least one third of it is given over to a vegetable garden. Yes, it has trees--fruit trees. Yes, it has some grass, but not much; and we’re replacing more and more of the “lawn” with purslane for salads.
So look around you. Look at your life style and decide for yourself: When is enough enough?
Blessed be Y'all (we just got back from the ozarks)
* two cars, one of them a monster battlefield weapon,
* a pantry jammed full of synthetic obese-making “foods”,
* at least two computers per family member ((not to mention all those little personal devices including death-dealing thumb games, obsolete or replaced in a week, flogged by the electronics empires, and
* a wall-filling TV 8 feet by 10 feet and ½ inch thick--whose offerings consist largely of mind- numbing drivel.
All this together with a multi-bedroomed house on a green quarter-acre of perfectly groomed lawn.
Paying for such a lifestyle requires at least two working adults per family, though with each passing year those two adults are earning less and less in real terms. The separation between incomes of the middle class and of the rich has widened to such an extent that (in our opinion) the United States has passed what is called the tipping point.
It looks as if it will continue to get worse with more people demanding more and more, though less able to afford it; paying for it all over a lifetime with the “aid” of broken financial institutions that will charge higher and higher percentages if you are to support your self-indulgent, over-consuming life style.
It may be difficult for you troops to believe this, but we Frosts live on Social Security, on less than $1,300 a month. We occupy a pleasant little house 100 years old and drive a reasonable car that’s only four years old. Our estate, “Gingerbread House”, is a city lot measuring 44 feet by 150 feet. At least one third of it is given over to a vegetable garden. Yes, it has trees--fruit trees. Yes, it has some grass, but not much; and we’re replacing more and more of the “lawn” with purslane for salads.
So look around you. Look at your life style and decide for yourself: When is enough enough?
Blessed be Y'all (we just got back from the ozarks)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Out of the Woodwork - a Frost Rant
As we Frosts travel around the country, we meet many small groups and a few large ones. Even when the small groups have connections with other groups, they tend to look inward, concentrating on their own ritual practices and on studying such things as history, herbal practice, astrology ... you name it.
Some questions come to mind then:
1. Why do groups break up?
2. Why are there still Witch wars?
3. Why are we not expanding into the general community, even though we know that more people than ever are in favor of our Craft way(s)--especially when the green movement and spirituality are of growing interest to the slightly better educated populace?
And it occurs to us to ask a further question:
What advantage is there for someone to join a pagan/Wiccan group? Meeting friends of like mind? Being able to discuss ideas with them without much fear of being put down? And... ?
The downside of this is: Joining such a group may even now cause problems with relatives and with the general populace.
We can learn from other groups such as naturists and the gay community that we need to offer more in the way of support for each other.
** If we think about a Christian church, we find its members naturally working with each other in the temporal world, using their peer group as resources. We in the alternative mindset tend not to do that. How many pagan/Wiccan groups have a list of their members' qualifications, their occupations, their abilities, their skills? If you want to get your car repaired, whom do you go to? If you need a lawyer, whom do you go to? If you want your kids sat for an evening or your house painted, whom do you go to? So we urge you to compile a business directory and encourage your members to support each other in the temporal world. The gay community calls this idea the gay Mafia list.
** The second whole area that we think is being sadly underserved is helping local police and sheriff's departments. We two have both been members of the North Carolina state chaplain's board serving inmates; and we served as a resource for the state juvenile officers' group.
When we address groups we often ask, "Do you know the name of your sheriff? of your police chief?" Too often the response is a totally blank stare. Yet law-enforcement people run into occasions when (especially young) people have wanted to do something bad. ("Woo hoo. See me being naughty!") Law enforcement may simply not know where to turn, how to find someone to serve as an information booth. That could be you. In local elections the sheriff often wins by just a handful of votes. A little political activism on behalf of the candidate you like can pay infinite rewards. Even if he loses the election, the other side will have learned that there is a power bloc they need to address.
** A third task that you can do for your group is to write grant applications. Your local college may offer a course on this skill. We have been involved in such things as writing an application for our local hospital, seeking a grant for an electrically operated sliding door.
** Or how many of you are into prison ministry? We don't mean just visiting the occasional inmate. We mean getting involved in such things as taking in a Thanksgiving meal to one of the low-security prisons with the aid of local restaurateurs.
** How about solstice packages? Many chain stores will donate to you the canned and dry goods necessary to package small donations at solstice time.
** What about an exchange of children's outgrown winter clothing? A lot of children are coming to families of the community, and coats and things grow more expensive every season.
** What about starting a pagan library or book swap? The School of Wicca runs its own library, lending the books suggested for our courses, because many of those titles are a challenge to find.
** And finally, how about a half-hour TV program every week on your public-access channel? It doesn't have to be a glossy sexed-up production; just standard digital camera work on local events, speakers, herbal hints, interviews, mention of solstices and equinoxes and full moons ... You can do it. Yes, it's a commitment; but it gets the group together in a worthwhile project. If any church gets access to your public-access channel, then you too qualify and cannot be denied-- that is, if you have done the paperwork with the IRS. And when you do it, you will find that inward-looking, tightly contained frustration and anger with one another will go away. Many pagan/Wiccans are highly qualified. The FBI finds that pagan/ Wiccans are the most highly educated group in the nation.
When we two present at a college, we think nothing of pulling in 300 or 400 attendees. The history department, the religious studies department, in fact all the humanities departments are prime targets for you to address. At residential colleges, the resident advisors like evening programs. (Make very clear to liaison people that you are not there to urge, but simply to reveal. They can make what they will of the facts.)
Pagans and Wiccans have a lot to offer. We can change hundreds of lives, just by being visible. We can answer lots of questions; and at the same time we can help ourselves. Because the one thing teaching does is crystallize and clarify your own belief system.
** These things are being done by Greenleaf in Springfield MO. We thank them both for their work and for the ideas.
Okay; we've beaten on you enough. See you. Blessed be.
Some questions come to mind then:
1. Why do groups break up?
2. Why are there still Witch wars?
3. Why are we not expanding into the general community, even though we know that more people than ever are in favor of our Craft way(s)--especially when the green movement and spirituality are of growing interest to the slightly better educated populace?
And it occurs to us to ask a further question:
What advantage is there for someone to join a pagan/Wiccan group? Meeting friends of like mind? Being able to discuss ideas with them without much fear of being put down? And... ?
The downside of this is: Joining such a group may even now cause problems with relatives and with the general populace.
We can learn from other groups such as naturists and the gay community that we need to offer more in the way of support for each other.
** If we think about a Christian church, we find its members naturally working with each other in the temporal world, using their peer group as resources. We in the alternative mindset tend not to do that. How many pagan/Wiccan groups have a list of their members' qualifications, their occupations, their abilities, their skills? If you want to get your car repaired, whom do you go to? If you need a lawyer, whom do you go to? If you want your kids sat for an evening or your house painted, whom do you go to? So we urge you to compile a business directory and encourage your members to support each other in the temporal world. The gay community calls this idea the gay Mafia list.
** The second whole area that we think is being sadly underserved is helping local police and sheriff's departments. We two have both been members of the North Carolina state chaplain's board serving inmates; and we served as a resource for the state juvenile officers' group.
When we address groups we often ask, "Do you know the name of your sheriff? of your police chief?" Too often the response is a totally blank stare. Yet law-enforcement people run into occasions when (especially young) people have wanted to do something bad. ("Woo hoo. See me being naughty!") Law enforcement may simply not know where to turn, how to find someone to serve as an information booth. That could be you. In local elections the sheriff often wins by just a handful of votes. A little political activism on behalf of the candidate you like can pay infinite rewards. Even if he loses the election, the other side will have learned that there is a power bloc they need to address.
** A third task that you can do for your group is to write grant applications. Your local college may offer a course on this skill. We have been involved in such things as writing an application for our local hospital, seeking a grant for an electrically operated sliding door.
** Or how many of you are into prison ministry? We don't mean just visiting the occasional inmate. We mean getting involved in such things as taking in a Thanksgiving meal to one of the low-security prisons with the aid of local restaurateurs.
** How about solstice packages? Many chain stores will donate to you the canned and dry goods necessary to package small donations at solstice time.
** What about an exchange of children's outgrown winter clothing? A lot of children are coming to families of the community, and coats and things grow more expensive every season.
** What about starting a pagan library or book swap? The School of Wicca runs its own library, lending the books suggested for our courses, because many of those titles are a challenge to find.
** And finally, how about a half-hour TV program every week on your public-access channel? It doesn't have to be a glossy sexed-up production; just standard digital camera work on local events, speakers, herbal hints, interviews, mention of solstices and equinoxes and full moons ... You can do it. Yes, it's a commitment; but it gets the group together in a worthwhile project. If any church gets access to your public-access channel, then you too qualify and cannot be denied-- that is, if you have done the paperwork with the IRS. And when you do it, you will find that inward-looking, tightly contained frustration and anger with one another will go away. Many pagan/Wiccans are highly qualified. The FBI finds that pagan/ Wiccans are the most highly educated group in the nation.
When we two present at a college, we think nothing of pulling in 300 or 400 attendees. The history department, the religious studies department, in fact all the humanities departments are prime targets for you to address. At residential colleges, the resident advisors like evening programs. (Make very clear to liaison people that you are not there to urge, but simply to reveal. They can make what they will of the facts.)
Pagans and Wiccans have a lot to offer. We can change hundreds of lives, just by being visible. We can answer lots of questions; and at the same time we can help ourselves. Because the one thing teaching does is crystallize and clarify your own belief system.
** These things are being done by Greenleaf in Springfield MO. We thank them both for their work and for the ideas.
Okay; we've beaten on you enough. See you. Blessed be.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Another Precinct Heard From
Our continuing wish is to make Wicca a true and valid representation of ancient wisdom restored to modern life. To that end, we are encouraged by reports that people who enjoy a good sex life are less prone to debilitating diseases. The science behind such reports flows directly from Professor Candace Pert's work on cellular receptors and endorphines, published as "Molecules of Emotion". When receptors of cells in the human body are occupied by ligands, as happens through pleasant sexual activity, disease pathogens can not enter those receptors: The receptors are already full.
In Marie Jakober's wonderful book "The Black Chalice" we found the passage below, and thought we'd like to share it with you. Jakober masterfully contrasts claims and truth. As well as this thought, the book offers many others as well on the dominator-religion paradigm, and is well worth finding.
The Christians were quite right about it, and so were those pitilessly reasonable Greeks: the body was dangerous. The body interfered with the orderly obsessions of philosophers; it broke the icy mind-nets of priests; it rebelled against the endless war-mongering of kings. It reminded people that the world was here, and life was now, and if they had no rights over their own flesh, then they had no rights at all.
Worst of all, perhaps, the body remembered that once, not very long ago, sex had been a holy and magical thing. It was not sinful but sacred; it was the power of the gods in the world. Its fire was their hunger to connect and to create; its lawlessness their endless trying out and making new. And its wild and driven ecstasies were the measure of its sacredness; something so exquisite and so forceful could come only from the gods.
That was why the Christians hated it so much. How could lust be the work of their own Lord--their Lord who was not of this world? It was of the old gods, just like the people believed; and it was demonic, just like the gods were.
So it was forbidden, in every way it could be, and what the churchmen could not forbid they wrapped in shame. They said it was the most dangerous of sins, more to be feared than cruelty or violence or war. They said in Eden it never existed. They said God intended men to breed as they laced up their tunics, matter-of-factly, without a throb of passion or a thought of carnal lust. Only a fallen human being, rotten with sin, could possibly desire that.
They were terrified of sex, and they had reason to be--they knew its power.
In Marie Jakober's wonderful book "The Black Chalice" we found the passage below, and thought we'd like to share it with you. Jakober masterfully contrasts claims and truth. As well as this thought, the book offers many others as well on the dominator-religion paradigm, and is well worth finding.
The Christians were quite right about it, and so were those pitilessly reasonable Greeks: the body was dangerous. The body interfered with the orderly obsessions of philosophers; it broke the icy mind-nets of priests; it rebelled against the endless war-mongering of kings. It reminded people that the world was here, and life was now, and if they had no rights over their own flesh, then they had no rights at all.
Worst of all, perhaps, the body remembered that once, not very long ago, sex had been a holy and magical thing. It was not sinful but sacred; it was the power of the gods in the world. Its fire was their hunger to connect and to create; its lawlessness their endless trying out and making new. And its wild and driven ecstasies were the measure of its sacredness; something so exquisite and so forceful could come only from the gods.
That was why the Christians hated it so much. How could lust be the work of their own Lord--their Lord who was not of this world? It was of the old gods, just like the people believed; and it was demonic, just like the gods were.
So it was forbidden, in every way it could be, and what the churchmen could not forbid they wrapped in shame. They said it was the most dangerous of sins, more to be feared than cruelty or violence or war. They said in Eden it never existed. They said God intended men to breed as they laced up their tunics, matter-of-factly, without a throb of passion or a thought of carnal lust. Only a fallen human being, rotten with sin, could possibly desire that.
They were terrified of sex, and they had reason to be--they knew its power.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)