One more great read from Orion Magazine, which seems to just churn out these though provoking and insightful essays and articles. This one is one condo building on the waterfront. I live in a condo, near the water…hmmmm…..

Well, I’ve been considering this for awhile, but I think now is a good a time as ever. My eating habits are pretty poor considering I eat only about once a day and usually it’s not very healthy. So I’ve decided to eat locally…sort of. Being inspired by a local blog I’m going to try to eat as much local food as possible. Living at the ocean it should be pretty easy. I’ve got an abundant food source full of fish to the east of me, and to the west and north I’ve got plenty of farms(south is Myrtle Beach). Of course it might be impossible to only eat local food because it’s the end of the growing season and I haven’t canned any food for the winter months around here. Trace from the blog mentioned that he goes “dumpster diving” and finds some really good stuff. So I think between eating fish, dumpster diving for discarded but still good food and buying meat out of the expiring bin at the store I should be able to make a good little change. This is much better than eating beef and chicken slaughtered hundreds or thousands of miles away and shipped to Wilmington to fatten the fat. I’d rather eat things that will be thrown out and wasted or eat something I either kill or grow myself. My pumpkins this year were and utter failure. It seemed every time a little pumpkin would start to grow on the vine something would eat it. I never did catch the culprit but I think it was the birds I attract with the bird feeder. I doubt the cockroaches have enough ambition to take on a fresh pumpkin. So it begins, my quest for independence and the salvation of unwanted food.

Today on the local talk radio show a man called in preaching about our need to be energy independent and the fact that we need to get off mid-east oil. That got me thinking all day about this. The caller made some points about how we could do this easily by just getting more oil from the oil shale in the Rockies, drilling in ANWR and off the coast on the seabed. I’ve been having an internal dialogue with myself all day about what it means to be energy independent and how to get there. First and foremost you have to start at the beginning. Oil - we get most of our imported oil from Canada and then Saudi Arabia. After that it goes Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela and sharply drops by half with Algeria, Iraq and so on. The “middle eastern oil” we talk about is Saudi oil. The supposedly fund terrorist organizations with the money they make from exports to our countries along with others. So, to the everyday American it would make perfect sense to not buy their oil. That obviously won’t happen, just look what happened in the 70’s with the oil embargo. I don’t think we have to worry about Canada anytime soon and Mexico isn’t exactly a threat nationally. So we’re left with importing oil to feed the insatiable and ridiculous need for growth to prop up our failing system. People like the caller feel that the government owes it to us to keep this oil coming(cheaply) so that we can continue our unintelligent and short-sided living styles. The answer is very simple to me. I know with peak oil and the consumption of resources going so fast we’ll run out in the next hundred or so years that we need to plan ahead. Not by some governmental program, but independently and locally. I have a friend who makes his own bio-diesel, I know others that ride their bike to work, or drive a smaller car. Nothing spectacular, just simple changes, which also happen to be healthy ones. It’s as easy as buying local organic food that didn’t have to travel as far. Start canning local vegetables for the coming winter months and eat seasonally with meat. Hell, even better, grow your own vegetables and animals for food. Most importantly and I stress this part…brew your own beer. I recently grabbed a book on brewing beer and plan to turn my bathroom into a makeshift brewery. These ever so simple changes make an impact when millions of people are doing them. You’ve got to live with the land and not off it. A perfect example is the Southeast where I live. We’re in a drought. Atlanta has 3 months of drinking water left and people don’t seem to be doing much about it. It makes sense that when you crowd and area with too many people, plant alien vegetation that requires more water than the ecosystem is used to, and consume water to keep your housing tract lawns so “evergreen” that you might start running into problems. Without rain 3 months from now the people there will have no recourse except the government to fly in water or have it directed from somewhere else. People don’t plan ahead; they keep living their lives as comfortable as possible with no thought to the consequences that might occur by consuming too much and not paying attention to the natural world around them.

Then we have this whole oil shale debacle. Oil Shale is essential sedimentary rock that contains stuff called kerogen that when heated is released as an oil like substance that can be used similarly. Now what is the problem with this you ask? Essentially, the same as coal mining. Open pit mines and damaging the aquifers are a huge risk. The companies are trying to heat the rock in the ground and basically suck off the good stuff. The only problem with this is keeping it from seeping into other parts of the ground. Solution: ice walls. Yah, baby put an ice wall around a hot area, great idea. All joking aside, they might be able to get somewhere with it if they can every figure out how to do it in a manner that’s economical for the companies. But for ice, you need water, and last I heard the west wasn’t so big on that resource. However, with a good chunk of it on public land in Colorado(Green river formation) I doubt the companies would have to worry about environmental issues. Especially, if oil prices keep going up. People want their “shiny things” and the Earth be damned if it gets in the way. Then you have tar sands, which is similar in the fact that you get oily stuff from the ground mixed in with a bunch of rock and dirt. Canada is really the one with the large-scale production of this stuff and it faces similar environmental hazards, along with the obvious problems of open pit mining.

My favorite coal. Being from the Allegheny Mountains I feel a closer connection with this issues. Although in Northern, PA/Southern NY where I live(It’s right on the border), I don’t have to worry about this. My friends south of me do however. Coal is one of those industries that seem to be synonymous with Americana. I group it right in there with the steel industry and logging…those old time industries that really built America up to what it has become. Now we’ve outgrown the need for that kind of industry because there’s too much demand and we can get it cheaper by importing. Let alone if we were to completely isolate ourselves at the current rate of consumption we’d have nothing left within a couple years. It’d be economic and environmental disaster - the end of America. Coal is going to make a comeback. With peak oil and prices rising, coal will be coming back with a vengeance. And isn’t it good to know that there’s plenty of it out west which just so happens to be where a lot of the production will come from. Isn’t it also nice to know that not only will western states get to deal with oil shale, but also coal mining…what a paradise. Of course back east I’m sure we’ll still rape and pillage the land. Strip mine, and then when we’re done seal in the poison waters into a couple retention ponds and put a public golf course on top of the old mine(you know set it back to the original condition that it was in before mining). It’s going to be a clusterfuck ladies and gentlemen, I swear on my mother’s grave(oops she isn’t dead yet).

Ok I lied, coal isn’t my favorite, ANWR is. Maybe because I’ve visited Alaska and heard both sides, read a few books on it and had a nice conversation with people that study the caribou herds. The simple man’s argument would be something like this, “Man, who cares about middle eastern oil, we got loads up it up in dat der ANWR but the liberals don’t want us to drill there because they’re concerned about some dumb Alaskan deer.” I shit you not that’s what I hear 90% of the time. The smart mans argument would go something like this, “I know there are environmental hazards by drilling for oil in ANWR, but with the current state of world affairs I think it would be the best option as long as environmental hazards are taken into account and prevented.” Now here’s what I think…ANWR. The controversy comes from drilling in the 1002 area, which is the coastal plain of ANWR. This also just so happens to be the calving ground for the 120,000 strong porcupine caribou herd, along with nesting grounds for many birds. This is in fact an environmentally sensitive area because for thousands of years the caribou have been coming here every year to give birth. The biologist we spoke to said that he believed it would have a negative impact on the caribou because they are so wary of loud noises or things they might have reason to be skittish with. This is the main reason that ramps were put in on the pipeline and that it was elevated so that the caribous could cross. However, according to the biologist, many times they don’t. On the flip side he said they’ve been known to use roads to cover greater distances, so it’s a two-sided coin. According to him any good scientist will say they don’t know the long-term effects of drilling on the coastal plain, however that is only because they need verifiable evidence and data to support a claim that it would be harmful. But it seems rather commonsense that it would be. The other issue with drilling is that its pollution rate is really bad. There are spills, leaks and fumes spewed into the ground and air all the time. Just west, ok really far west(It’s Alaska, huge state) you have the National Petroleum Reserve. Up until 1999 it was pretty much off limits until our good friend under Babbit the Secretary of The Interior under Clinton leased a good portion of the northeastern section. The rest was left as environmentally sensitive areas until the Bush years, which all together eliminated that. So the question we have to ask ourselves in the end isn’t whether we want to save caribou, but rather if we’re will to sacrifice everything to gain a little something. If you are at all interested in learning more about ANWR I encourage you to read Jonathan Waterman’s book, “Where The Mountains Are Nameless.” I’ll leave you with a quote from the book which has a tour bus drive talking about Deadhorse, AK near the oil fields…”Twenty-five years ago this was all a wasteland…now look at it. It’s a modern industrial complex.” So it goes…

I was going to write a big long blog about how Jesus is no different than Zarathustra, Muhammed, Buddha..etc. By that I mean virgin births that go way back to many different belief systems, including some “pagan” ones that Christianity has stolen dates from (ie. Christmas/Easter). I’ll sum it up and get my point out of the way. I don’t think some dead Jew was the son of God. We are all sons and daughters of god, whatever “God” may be. The whole gist of the post was going to be how I’ve never been able to comprehend the worship of one man from a patriarchal Jewish society who’s been dead for 2000 years. In that I can’t fathom worshipping any other man, especially when the historical facts don’t point in their favor. If Jesus is the son of God, I am too. He might have been a much better person than me, but that was his journey, and this is mine. However, I think if you took the New Testament by itself you’d have an entirely different and better religion, if there is such a thing. Be that as it may, I will now focus on fact that not having the change of four seasons really throws my internal clock off.

In Wilmington, NC which happens to be located on the eastern coast, the leaves don’t turn any shades of aspen yellow, or brilliant orange before they fall to the ground. This area seems to just fade from summer to winter without any acknowledgement between the two. Mostly longleaf pine, the eastern seaboard doesn’t lend itself very well to a beautiful autumn from the get go. It just amazes me how attached I am to the changing of seasons. It doesn’t seem natural for me to go from summer to winter without the autumn, full of changing leaves, the crisp air and morning frost along with a slew of fresh cider and donuts from the mill down the road. Instead I’m dealing with a drought and 80 degree weather at the end of October. I hate it. If I could be anywhere for two weeks out of the year it’d be home in the Allegany mountains when the leaves are changing. Maybe not for sheer beauty, although I do rank it up there with what I’ve seen in my short life, but because I’m so attached to the memories and the vibe of the place. Fall brings back memories of playing football, putting away the shorts for the jeans, walking in the woods and most importantly the reminder that we are part of something greater than ourselves. Nature’s wonder and beauty are playing out right in front of our eyes while the earth starts tilting away from the sun and the trees prepare for the long winter. There’s something magical about that time of year. Maybe it has something to do with Halloween and the spiritual activity of the place awakening. Or maybe, the area has a spirit of its own which I’ve grown so fond of. It’s not something you can appreciate until you leave. The part of North Carolina I live in now is devoid of any type of “magic,” instead its full of condos and traffic. Maybe it’s all the negativity from the people that’s in the air. Or maybe this place doesn’t embrace the people like the land does back home because of what they’re doing to it. I know I speak of the land like a living being, and that’s because it is. This time of year it’s exhaling, and preparing for a long sleep until it’s time to awake and push life back to the surface toward the returning sun. I walk outside on a Thursday evening and I hear kids who drive Volvo’s and BMW’s screaming about how drunk they are. I should be in a small village or in a cabin where instead of pushing nature aside you can embrace it. That’s what fall is for me, a time to embrace the waning moments warm weather and a myriad of colors before the onset of a usually harsh and unforgiving winter. Wilmington, North Carolina doesn’t know the first thing about that. Instead they’ll have Halloween costume parties at bars and see who can dress the sluttiest and win the $100 prize. I doubt anyone even thinks about the origins of Halloween, actually I know they don’t. There is no reverence for the natural world here. If it doesn’t pertain to the sandy shores of the beach then you might as well forget about it. Give me a gallon of fresh pressed apple cider, an Edward Abbey book and a day in forest behind my Grandmother’s old farm any day over the “luxurious lifestyle” of the beach. Anyway – to compensate I’ve made 4 loaves of pumpkin bread which I would post pictures of if I had my camera’s usb cord. The cider in the fridge is hard even though it was pasteurized and I have three store bough pumpkins with two growing on the vine on the backporch. So, all in all I guess it’s not that bad, I just picked one shithole of a city to call home.

WARNING: DON’T WATCH IF YOU FEEL AT ALL UNEASY WITH SEEING A COW SLAUGHTERED. WAIT, ON SECOND THOUGHT, WATCH IT. YOU SHOULD FEEL UNEASY WHEN WATCHING AN ANIMAL GET BUTCHERED. We as a society have gotten so far away from the act of killing and harvesting our own food we forget that beef and other meat actually has to come from an animal which is alive. I don’t like watching this, or many other videos I see online. However, I force myself too because I know that if I eat meat I am responsible for this activity. Not to mention one should never get too comfortable and become blind to the world’s problems. I’ve seen videos of executions online among others. They are absolutely horrific. But you know, it is happening. People are dying, and to pretend like it isn’t and stay in a nice little bubble is completely irresponsible. That goes out especially to you war mongers(even moreso to those who support the war and won’t go fight it even though they are able bodied). People die in war and you should have to watch it. Then and only then do you realize the cost. That goes the same for a burger. It’s tasty alright, but when you watch the conditions and suffering and animal is put through to make a big mac, is it worth it? I’m certainly not innocent of this, I eat meat. I also know how it’s done and watch the slaughter. It’s not so much that one should stop eating meat or write off all war, but rather be accountable and knowledgeable about the processes and actions that it takes to get there. Blood is blood, animal or human animal.

Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission–to be of service to them whenever they require it… If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
– Saint Francis of Assisi(See I’m not a total asshole when it comes to religion)

News Article…. Off the fucking cliff we go…

A recent article in the local Wilmington paper made note of a tour of local houses that were utilizing “green” building. One of the houses mentioned was built by a local builder who used pines from new growth forest for wood, built “high performance” windows to make use of the breezes and has his home partially powered by solar. This is great, right? Well ya, until you consider the fact that this home is over 9,000 sq. feet. Apparently, sustainability now comes in the form of homes built within a huge development which are ironically named things like “Brunswick Forest.” Brunswick Forest is almost 5,000 acres of cleared forest to make room for all the new homes. Golly gee wiz! that sounds like an environmentalist dream. If you believe the website(and I sure do!) then you can too enjoy the lovely landscape that’s been “enhanced by nature’s hand.” I’m not even going to make a smart ass remark about that quote, it’s stupidity should be blatant enough. Back to builder Senior and his 9,000sq. foot home. I don’t mean to knock the guy for using some environmentally sound practices, however, if you aim is to be environmentally sound your best bet is to just not build a 9,000 sq. foot on the intracoastal waterway where there’s already been enough damage. It’s like hitting someone over the head so you can take them to the hospital all for the outcome of looking like your taking care of them. There are a few good instances of green building in this article, like Dan Brawley head of the local film festival Cucaloris has done. Recycled materials on the cheap, that’s the way to go. Everyone is obsessed with buying new, when really you can get the same quality with alot more character just by scrounging around for some used material. I guess I am just flabbergasted that abomination built in those developments can be seen as anything close to green. I suppose I’d rather see revitalization of the downtown area than the destruction of an already perfect Pine Savannah or pocosin habitat.

Step one: Destroy the local ecosystem through land clearing.
Step two: Build unsustainable homes and plant foreign vegetation for landscaping sake.
Step three: Throw up two solar panels and buy a prius.
Step four: Declare you’re environmental savior status.

All sarcasm aside, I think it is a good thing that “green building” is a growing trend. But it’s inevitably flawed. Growth itself cancels out any good done by solar power or recycled materials, especially if you live in a future slum like “Marsh Oaks” or “Brunswick Forest.” We need to focus on reducing consumption and reusing old materials, homes, cars. But as long as society covets things like new cars, large homes, Paris Hilton, and shiny things, we are doomed to fail not only as a nation, but also as a species of this planet.

Possibly one of the biggest influences of Christianity?????

I got this from the paper down here. And to answer the mans question about whether development is good or bad, it’s bad. It’s horrible, in fact I don’t think there’s much I hate more. What do I know though? A booming housing market and population growth is great for an economy that can only survive off unbridled growth. What’s that Ed Abbey? Cancer, you say?

Wilmington native has seen change . . . good and bad

By Amy Hotz
Staff Writer
amy.hotz@starnewsonline.com

I’m 28 years old. Barely a speck on the radar of the human life span. But I’m also a born and bred Wilmingtonian, which means I’ve probably seen a lot more than most people my age in other cities our size.

Until getting married four years ago, I lived my entire life in a cinderblock house my father and his father built in 1954 on a dirt road. That road is now paved with a traffic light at one end. I had a relative who fought at Moore’s Creek during the Revolutionary War and a couple other relatives who were stationed at Fort Fisher during the Civil War.

My family house is less than a mile from Landfall, which I can remember as being nothing but woods and swamp. My dad used to hunt on the same spot lawyers now dig their golf shoes into.

Part of the Mayfaire property was a cow pasture. That changed not long ago. But it changed fast. At 28 I can remember when Wilmington had no Wal-Mart, when there wasn’t an Interstate 40, when half the buildings on the campus of the University of North Carolina Wilmington were not there.

Downtown was still a little seedy and actually had some industry. I don’t recall any artsy-fartsy high-dollar clothing stores there. Rare Cargo was at the Galleria shopping center. And there certainly weren’t any doggy treat bakeries – downtown or anywhere else.

Wrightsville Beach had places you could park for free. And the south end actually had big chunks of what looked like brick chimneys scattered around on the sand. I guess those are all covered up now.

I get out and about. I socialize. But now when someone tells me where they live, I rarely recognize the street names.

When I was younger, if you went to Carolina Beach, you drove quite a ways with nothing but trees to look at. The most interesting things along the route were Tote-Em-In Zoo and some place that had a wooden fence around it cut out like teepees. They had animals like raccoons and possums in cages and a small gift shop that sold leather moccasins and cheap Indian headdresses.

We’d take trips to Fort Fisher nearly every weekend, and it didn’t look anything like it does now. The part that hurts the worst now is driving down River Road or past those pastel-colored houses on stilts. I vividly remember the dense maritime scrub oaks that used to coat those areas. Deer were always roaming there. And, to a child, imagining what was hidden in a place that surely no one had walked in for decades gave the place a magical feel.

I don’t know if I-40 did it or if moving to the beach is just a fad that’s gotten out of hand, but the old timers who used to give my family pecans from their trees each fall and bring over two-liter plastic Pepsi bottles of homemade wine have found that the land they’ve worked and lived on most of their lives is now too expensive to own. Taxes and the cost of living have run them out.

Macy Rollins, an old family friend in her 80s, found her home annexed by the city after her husband died four or five years ago.

Dad always said you couldn’t give him the property because it was adjacent to a mosquito-infested marsh. Someone decided it was worth more than Mrs. Rollins has probably ever seen in her entire life. The taxes were too much for her Social Security checks to bear, so she called the city to find out what she could do.

She said the lady she spoke with told her if she deeded the property to the city, she could live there tax-free until she died. Mrs. Rollins wanted to leave the house to her family, though, and asked if there was anything else she could do. The lady said no.

Ten or so townhouses are now squeezed onto that little pecan tree field.

Where in the heck are these people who are building and buying all these high-dollar homes getting their money? Where do they work? Do they, in the truest sense, contribute to this city?

I know I’m pretty lucky I found a decent paying job in my hometown. Most of my high school classmates have moved away. People often tell me how amazed they are to have found a real, live Wilmingtonian. Then they step back and look at me closer, pensively.

But I try not to complain much about all the changes. Some things are actually for the better. The Riverwalk is nice. And it’s good to have so many choices in ice cream shops.

But once in a while I drive through the old neighborhood or get stuck in traffic at the New Centre Drive-Market Street intersection and I wonder if all this growth is mostly good or mostly bad.

I still haven’t answered myself on that one.

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if I knew the people making all the big decisions and changes, whether they just flew in from Kalamazoo or have lived here all their lives, truly respect what’s already here – the very things that make Wilmington special.

I feel mighty old for 28.

9-5 day in and day out. Washing dishes, making food, all for the fattened customers strolling in from their gated communities. They are “well off,” according to their own versions of terrestrial wealth. I watch them scamper in and out all day like a party of ants scouring the sand for their next meal. This is no way to spend your days. If I was to die tomorrow would I want to know that my last day on earth, our home, was spent making food and washing the dishes of this arrogant, ignorant colony of people that moved here for “the good life.” I needed to get out. Away from the constant buzz of the highway and beeping horns of angry commuters trying to get to their destination faster than the next driver. It’s a race down the highways and roads. Who’s got the faster car, the bigger car, the more expensive car. I’d had it with the city. I threw my camera in my backpack and drove off. Not to some distant wilderness location, teeming with the sounds and silence of birds, crickets and water - no, rather to the quiet back roads. A place where the wind can blow without trying to overpower the constant hum of civilization and there is a stillness in the air contrary to the breeze. Out here on this backcountry road, I quiet my mind. I notice the egrets standing in the shallow brackish water, lilies floating on the wind blown surface, which ripples and bobs like a sheet hanging to dry in the summer breeze. Six feet away from me in the shallow, murky water is a large 8 foot alligator. I’m not afraid, but curious, of this beast which I’ve never been so close to. It has no fear of me, although it keeps a very watchful eye. The alligator must think I’m strange to sit there and stare at him trying to warm his body in the sun. And I think of how easily this animal, millions of years old, perfected by time, could take me to my grave in the time it would take my heart to jump in fear of it’s closing jaws. But no, this is not that scene. Instead, it’s just me and the alligator - staring, listening, learning. I’m no farther than a 20 minute drive from the place I see destroyed everyday. Plastic houses, stamped out in the most economical fashion. Nails pounded, rivets punched, screw drivers working as fast as the hands of the illegal immigrant can make it go. This, all in the name of progress. As I sit there I think that “progress” should mean the moving forward of something, the gradual improvement. Though, everyday I see the opposite, I see the plundering of resources for material wealth, with no thought put towards future generations, or the trees and animals displaced to provide a “home” for someone looking to retire or start a new life in the coast. This alligator, as simple as it may be, reminds me of our own imperfections and frailty. If it wanted it could make me its delicious dinner. I am no challenge to this animal, and maybe he senses that. There is something to be said for simplicity. This animal doesn’t want excess or to destroy the environment it lives in. As simple as it is, driven by million year old instincts, it understands that it’s home, it’s life is dependant on a healthy ecosystem. No clean water = no fish. No fish = no food. No food = death. As humans I wonder why we can’t understand that philosophy better. Because something is expensive or large does not make it better, especially if it comes at the cost of the ecosystem. Driving back “home” I am passed by at least 7 drivers. Apparently, 55mph just isn’t fast enough on a two lane road. No matter though, my mind was as still as the alligator, saving his energy to catch his next meal.