SOLAR COOKING

 We returned to Thousand Trails Las Vegas for another two weeks. As it turned out, we are parked in the same spot, with the same neighbor as when we left 10 days ago. Yesterday was a sunshiney, warm day, a nice long walk and and the laundry done, sets us up for another chance to play in a city that is primed for fun.
 And we got information from Judy Price about how to never run out of milk. There is a product called Real Fresh, from Holland, PA. in 8 oz. containers that keeps milk shelf fresh. I'll let you know how it works. While talking to Judy, she had never heard of a solar cooker. At one time I used one frequently and I love them. They never over-cook your food or burn anything. Food tastes so good from a solar cooker and the work savings alone is worth giving it a try.

This is a fancy solar cooker, meaning complicated for doing a lot of heavy cooking. You can fry on this solar device which  you cannot on mine. (Pictures courtesy of Solar Cooking International.)

 This smaller solar cooker is similar to the one I use.  Its obviously home made. I've made a couple myself, devised out of a tinfoil lined cardboard box. They don't cook as consistently as the foil-lined cardboard box types sold by Solar Cooking International. Nor do the home made ones store well. The 501c 3 organization, Solar Cooking International,  is promoting buying solar cookers to donate to hurricane ravaged  Haiti or other parts of the world where they benefit third world peoples who have thin resources. Instead of buying candy on valentines day, buy a solar cooker for yourself or someone else. When you buy one, it provides four to a needy family in Kenya. A good way to spend $25.
They have an interesting website at:

http://solarcooking.org/

Their newsletter is always full of family stories about people who benefited from solar cookers.

UNVEILING THE DRAGON

The dragon is not always a symbol of fierceness. The Lakota people consider the dragon a symbol of retreat; to journey inward to your own center of peace and quiet. Sharon Armstrong is a psychologist who does art work with her patients. Her strength is in mask making. For years she has taught people to make their own faces in a mask.  It helps people clarify who they are and where they are going. Working on it provides them a kinship with themselves and others. But, for the Burning Man, held the Monday before Labor Day each year in the desert, Sharon built a 23 foot tall dragon. Sharon returned home and erected it in her mother's garden at the Center for Creativity and Community in San Andreas. 

The dragon's name is Uncegila and is surrounded by a labyrinth. The unveiling was held Sunday and people came to walk the labyrinth and visit the Center, the Gallery, housed in a 100 year old restored barn, and the Garden.

Sharon, on the left, with Madalaine Krska, showed everyone around the Center which came about in an unusual way. Her mother, Floy, heard Sharon on a television interview comment that she wished she could found a Center for Creativity and Community. Floy decided right then and there that she could make that come true. Floy took her rental at 23 West St. Charles Place in San Andreas, and is helping her daughter  transform the building into a non-profit Community Center. There is space for art work, teaching ceramics, photography, creative writing, video, painting, drawing, mask making and music.  Their vision is to provide a gathering place for people of all ages to explore and express their unique creativity regardless of their ability to pay.

 The Center is just getting started, but classes have already underway. Nanette Klass teaches drawing.

Ruth Nicols teaches harp and Tai Chi.

Floy's vegetable and flower garden was planted by area children.

 Sharon teaches mask making; and her husband, George, teaches landscape painting.

But you don't have to be an artist to enjoy the center. My brother Bill, above, joined me and walked the labyrinth around the dragon. Eventually, the gazebo with a fountain and picnic area will be open to the public. The lovely Victorian House can hold an audience of 30 people for performance events. Two sound proof rooms allow people quiet space for writing or music lessons.

Or, like me, you can lie in the hammock and relax and contemplate the dragon from afar. The website is:  http://www.center4creativity.net/

ITS A CHEMICAL WORLD

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. The Environmental Protection Agency people,  who attempt to sort out all the nasty chemicals and approve or disapprove of them, weigh stuff like:
Should household cleaning products that we use on our clothing, counter tops, cars, driveways, have to reveal what chemicals are in the products we use?  No.
However, New York is the first state to require manufacturers to reveal them. Go New York!  It would be nice to have a clean and healthy home without risk from known problems for some people  like asthma and reproductive defects.

Or how about this one, should EPA allow researchers to dose people with poisonous pesticides and study the effects?  Can they pay people to drink, eat and enter vaporous chambers and see what happens? Apparently, yes. Yes? They even tested on pregnant women and children. Well, they've been sued and have to stop that awful practice.

California's San Joaquin Valley is the most polluted air basin in the United States. My son lives there. After multiple suits against the EPA, they've been forced to enforce the Clean Air Act requirements just this past June. 1,000 people each year die from air-pollution maladies. 

Well, the EPA did ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos from being used in homes and gardens. It's a World War II era chemical for warfare. It causes blurred vision, headaches, chest tightness, coughing, wheezing, nausea, vomiting, low birth weights. Studies have not been exhaustive.  But, 8 to 10 million pounds of the nerve gas pesticide is still used each year by farms across the country, infiltrating food and water supplies, endangering salmon along with diazinon,and malathion. I guess it depends on who we think should be endangered, home owners no, but farm workers yes. And, just those who inadvertently ingest the stuff in their food not knowing what they are eating. Salmon is supposed to be a healthy food choice.  I would like wild salmon to rebound in our rivers.

And the EPA is thinking about banning a highly toxic chemical used on pear orchards, potato, tomato and lettuce fields called Endosulfan because the stuff travels long distances, like the Arctic, Sierra Nevada lakes, Mount Everest. They find it in the air around schools and they know it causes reproductive deformities and it increases autism in exposed fetuses. That is, now that they are being sued they are thinking about banning it.

Truth be told, there are hundreds of thousands of chemicals awash on our food and products that have never been tested. Its even worse in other countries. The non profit organization, Earthjustice, is attempting to hold the  EPA to its standards of protection. Chemical deduction is kind of like reading a horror story. When I'm on the road, I don't worry about these things as much. But, they don't go away. A new nasty chemical pops up out of some manufacturing lab every year. Maybe every week.  And people wonder why breast cancer, birth defects, asthma and autism are on the rise.

I may be old fashioned but I think I should be able to breathe air not fouled by someone's chemicals. Isn't there an industrial code that says Do No Harm?  Apparently not. And isn't the EPA supposed to protect us, the consumers? Apparently not.

It may benefit you to know that Earthjustice, the non-profit group, is located at 426 Seventeenth St., Sixth Floor, Oakland, CA. 94612.

HEALTH CARE RANT

From a public non profit organization, Public Citizen Health Research Group, comes this insightful information via Dr. Sidney Wolfe. He spoke before a Subcommittee on Health at a hearing on Health Insurance.
"The real question is, why should we tolerate the fragmented, highly profitable, administratively wasteful private health insurance industry any longer?" questions Wolfe. To paraphrase his comments, he states the public is way ahead of either Pres. Obama or the congress in its distrust of the health insurance industry. The Congress, on the other hand is writing them into the legislation. They want us to believe health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry will be good citizens and voluntarily lower prices.
In the last 30 years there are three times more doctors and nurses, and 30 times more health administrators. Administrators do not provide any care. The drug companies and insurance companies make more money with a frangmented, uncontroled system that allows them to not insure "unprofitable" people and let the the public (that's you and me) take care of them. 30 other countries have adoped centralized health insurance coverage which reaches as high as 96% of their people by throwing out the health insurance industry that obstructs care. Countries who do this get high coverage at cheaper cost then we now know. So, what model should we follow? A failed, fragmented policy or a practical single payer program that does the right thing by the people of Canada, Taiwan, New Zealand, most of Europe, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Turkey?
Public Citizen's Dr. Woohandler's testimony before the same Subcommittee on Health Insurance, pointed out that 62 % of bankruptcies in this country are related to health care. And 50% of those bankrupt families HAD health insurance. Dr. Woolhandler went on to say that private insurance is a defective product. It would take vast government expenditures to support America's uninsured under the current system. It would save $400 billion annually by using single-payer reform just to shrink the health care bureaucracy.
It angers me that good health care is so fundamental to a successful society, and here we are with too many congressional "leaders" taking money from the health industry lobby that is doing it's best to befuddle the picture. My neighbors and friends are mad as hell and believe me, the voters are going to have the last say. Hopefully, it won't be too late for a single-payer reform that has teeth.