[Terrapreta] Food Shortages

[lou gold]

Thank you Max.

You have delivered a true gift to all of us.

I am reminded of Wade Davis' TED Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/69
In speaking of the "ancient ones" -- indigenous peoples such as indios da
terra preta -- he remarks that they had two things that we don't have: time
and ritual.

Time can be conquered through story -- stories offered by elders (who recall
the past) and stories by seers (who project a future) and by all of us (who
make time for considering the stories).

Ritual can be recreated. A garden is a good one.

hugs and blessings,

lou





On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:45 AM, MFH <mfh01 at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

>  Lou
>
>
>
> I'm not about to tell anyone how many years are on my personal clock, but
> I'm sure I don't remember WWII rationing simply because I was at least
> several days younger than you were. Maybe even hours….
>
>
>
> It wasn't only food that was rationed. Materials, (remember when mothers
> actually sewed shirts and trousers and skirts on foot-powered Singers, and
> Dad's had a vege patch in the back yard), petrol, tyres, nails, roofing
> material, timber, saucepans (any aluminium ones were collected for airplane
> manufacture). Cast iron gates and fences were sacrificed for scrap to build
> destroyers, even hair was collected from barber's floors.
>
>
>
> Were they the 'good times' in retrospect? Have we lost the plot?
>
>
>
> I remember my Mother had 3 calico bags (washed ex-flour bags) behind the
> kitchen door – one was for waste bits of string (because the butcher and
> almost everyone else tied the bundle in string), one was for paper, and one
> for rags. Recycling is the current buzz-word but 60+ years ago almost
> nothing was thrown away. We didn't have a garbage bin collection because
> there wasn't any garbage. Nothing was purchased in a tin (can?), any bottles
> were valuable and re-used for home-made jam or pickles, there was no
> plastic. Any food peelings and/or scraps were boiled with some grain mash
> and fed to the chooks or pigs. The hessian bags from the mash were boiled in
> the 'copper' in the back yard and used for bath mats, or sewn into coats for
> the calves in the winter. We weren't "poor" in the real sense, we just
> seemed to do what was normal then. In pre-teen times on a relative's farm my
> Aunt would walk 4 miles to the village once/month to buy sugar, salt and
> flour, the only things that they couldn't produce on the farm. And a splurge
> at the butcher. A couple of chops, a pound of rough steak for stew, and some
> corned beef. Without refrigeration the first was the luxury that night, the
> stew could last a few days, and the corned beef last a week or so. For the
> next 3 weeks it was corn fritters or chicken or the odd rabbit. There was
> never even a suggestion that we were missing out.
>
>
>
> Amongst all this was the cohesion in the community. Someone was sick. No
> phones, no email, no Web – just simply the message got out and at 4 am the
> next morning one of the neighbour's kids turned up for the milking. No
> questions, no asking – just happened.
>
>
>
> Google, Wikipedia, Email? Sure, I'm a part of this. In particular I've had
> an enthralling couple of weeks amongst the TP group. But, the inevitable
> but. Where would I rather be?  That's a huge question.
>
>
>
> I've been to lots of so-called International Conferences to (try) to sort
> out things like tropical rainforest destruction, socio-economic solutions to
> the third (or second or fifteenth) world's problems, food security, etc,
>  invariably paid for by multi-nationals and equally invariably held in
> 4-star pubs. One in particular stands out – paid for by the Ford Foundation
> and held in BC in Canada around 1994, for the prime aim of making a
> declaration about a "Way to Go Forward". Please.
>
>
>
> If these sods have so much money to spare, wouldn't it be a massive blast
> to get the TP group together in a camp somewhere real?  I did it in PNG in
> 1994 with 120 attendees all sleeping on mats on the ground in grass huts. We
> certainly changed some concepts.
>
>
>
> The planet is in trouble. Its unlikely that any of us can claim that we
> haven't made some contribution to this in the last 50 or so years. We may be
> committed to our own directions in trying to resolve the issues, but we need
> to recruit squillions of others to reality. And I would need a lot of
> convincing that the greatest opponents are Governments and their corporate
> partners.
>
>
>
> Bear with me – just needed to get this off my chest,
>
> Max H
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:
> terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] *On Behalf Of *lou gold
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 22 April 2008 7:31 PM
> *To:* terra pretta group
> *Subject:* [Terrapreta] Food Shortages
>
>
>
> I'll begin with a friendly note to Kevin...
>
> WARNING: These links may be a major diversion from your primary tasks.
> If you want to hold your focus, don't go there.
>
> http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article3782.html
>
> http://business.theage.com.au/japans-hunger-becomes-a-dire-warning-for-other-nations/20080420-27ey.html
> http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world
>
> Food rationing of some sort is coming. I am old enough to remember
> the last time food was rationed in the US -- during WWII. I was too young
> (4-9 years) to understand much but here are a few things that I remember.
>
> There were shortages but no hunger.
>
> There was massive education to explain the relationship between
> food and the war needs. We actually did little "morality plays" about
> it in elementary school.
>
> In Chicago where I lived there was a neighborhood "Victory Garden"
> on every block that had an empty lot or a bit of free space.
>
> Government was ever-present and was largely perceived as an instrument
> of a public will that wanted to win the war.
>
> Nowadays and thinking of the future that is arriving as I write, can you
> imagine
> yummy soil amendments being delivered to the neighborhoods? etc? and etc?
> Like the old Indian Elder said, "It could be a very good time."
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> http://lougold.blogspot.com
> http://flickr.com/visionshare/sets
> http://youtube.com/my_videos
>



-- 
http://lougold.blogspot.com
http://flickr.com/visionshare/sets
http://youtube.com/my_videos
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