I liked this article I read from the BBC awhile back. It imagines a world without planes, in the future. It starts off rather silly, but progresses to something lovely. Whatever the advantages of plentiful and convenient air travel, we may curse it for being too easy, too unnoticeable – and thereby for subverting our …
I love fishes a lot as a tasty dinner object. But could I love fishes more as another organism and aspect of life? Maybe. The last paragraph of Tsem Tulku Rinpoche’s blog post kinda poked me in this next step towards vegetarianism: Please go vegetarian. So much food is available without slaughter of animals for …
I have a possibly somewhat weird recommendation: dry toothpaste. Which I guess isn’t a paste at all. I’ve tried a couple of DIY toothpastes and hated them, but then settled on an even-more-simple version of my friend’s simple salty toothpaste recipe. Basically, I left out all the liquids, mushed up some anise seed & used …
I am awake at 3am local time, which is a little annoying. If I could, I might poke my internal clock in the eye. This is the thought I woke up with: when did I stop using plastic baggies? My home airport keeps an enormous box of them just outside the security line, and I …
In another… hrm, six weeks… I’ll be starting a job that means I’ll travel constantly. That’s an impact on the environment I’m not used to having – though I do drive a 20 mile commute to and from work most days now, so it’s not like my business travel is zero impact to begin with. …
Not eating meat at Thanksgiving dinner is surprisingly weirder and more difficult than not smoking at almost all other times. My family made that much easier, though, by making a bunch of salmon for me (a sort of sacrifice, since mom hates even the smell of fish). Yes, fish is really a form of meat …
On a lighter note: big box stores are not quite ready for the bring-your-own-bag phenomenon. At least not in Virginia. Target, for instance, sells reusable shopping bags, but the cashiers eye me suspiciously when I bag my stuff without their plastic. Plus, there seems to be a rote physical behavior of scan, then stick in …
This weekend I tried to make a semi-secluded corner in the yard by putting up trellissy stuff and planting mandevilla (it’s the first step of many, I imagine) and a couple of zinnias. The soil back in that corner looked like it had been in some sort of war zone, so the approach that usually …
I put out a bag for recycling at the beach house my family rented for vacation last week. We ended up filling 3 bags! People can make so much trash; it’s amazing. My parents started regularly recycling well before I did, but they aren’t attentive to it now when it’s not convenient. I never figured …
I’ve been having a debate about personal property with a colony of ants for the past several weeks. The ants, communists that they are, contend that I am perfectly able to provide them with cat food, popsicle wrappers and leftover bits of fruit; these, they argue, are all things they need – so they’ll come …