Best You Tube video I've seen all year

This video has nothing to do with canning or adorable conures sleeping in my hand, but it does combine my all-time favorite movie and my barely-contained fury over the last decade.  Thanks, Reagan, and all you doofus Chicago School economists, for ushering in the era of laissez faire on crack.

But I love this idea.  We might be able to take it back, one little bank account at a time.  Think it would work? Or are the megacorporations destined to dominate from here on out?

Molecular Biologist Bonnie Bassler

This is so cool. Bonnie Bassler and her team at Princeton have discovered how bacteria communicate with each other.

A most excellent tidbit from the video- humans are, at most, 10% human. The majority of what we are is actually bacteria. That's sure to piss off/ freak out the germophobes. Fun!

Swine Flu, the Musical

Another one from therockcookiebottom. I love me some Jonathan Mann.

New Documentary- "Food, Inc."

Coming to an (independent) theatre near you, hopefully in June. Note the voiceover in the trailer is Michael Pollan.

Here's a Little Ditty About Paul Krugman

My sentiments exactly. Hey Paul Krugman, where the hell are you, man?

Maybe if we all had ducks...

Just when I think I can't have a bigger crush on Mike Rowe

I'm a big fan of the Discovery show Dirty Jobs, and the show wouldn't be the same without Mike's charms. However, this FORA.TV video he made in December just completely takes it to a new level. The video is about 20 minutes.

Just when I think I can't have a bigger crush on Anderson Cooper

...he goes and does THIS.

Speaking of Ducks

It's November in Michigan...

...And, to me, that means Gordon Lightfoot.

There aren't a lot of good videos of the song on the Utube (and zero decent videos with Lightfoot singing the song live), but I liked that this vid opens with old news footage of the wreck.

My homesteading goals, manifest

You may have seen this family online- they are the Dervaes family of Pasadena, CA. They grow an astonishing amount of food on their 1/10 acre plot (no doubt aided by the long, long growing season of southern California). Here's a video from Youtube:



Well, now there's a documentary movie coming out.
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http://www.homegrown-film.com/trailer.html
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This is exactly the kind of attention the movement needs. I just hope it doesn't draw the notice of the Big Ag police...

A REQUEST, Goin' Out To Laura... ON... WHIC!

Ok, I think it's pretty funny that my radio call letters are H I C.

For your enjoyment (or suffering, depending)

Crows are cool

This video from TED.com has nothing to do with anything I usually post, but I've always loved crows. I just think they're cool. The presentation made me giggle and gasp in equal measure.

"The Garden" movie premieres to raves and awards

(Capitalism will destroy everything)

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http://www.blackvalleyfilms.com/

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This is a full-length documentary about a 14-acre, South LA community garden that was formed by the LA Regional Food Bank in 1992, just after the LA riots. The garden grew to become the second-largest distributor of free food to the urban poor in the US. The gardeners and the community were horrified when city approved the the destruction of the garden in an unpublicized city council session.

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While the garden was approved by the city, neither the gardeners nor the food bank owned the land- though the land was lent for the explicit purpose of forming an urban garden. It's a complicated backstory, and I don't completely grock the legal loop-de-loops, so bear with me:

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The city had originally declared eminent domain in the 1980s to use the (privately owned) land to build an incinerator, but strong local protests against the incinerator won out. However, even though the incinerator project was defeated, the city still held eminent domain. The acreage was offered to the LA food bank, and the acreage was sub-divided into 360 individual gardening plots. In 1994, the city sold a small portion of the land, which broke the original contract with the property owner- he had contractual first refusal rights. The owner brought suit against the city, who eventually won back the land in an out-of-court settlement. And he decided he wanted to knock down the garden and build warehouses on the acreage.

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The garden thrived for 11 years; completely unbeknownst to the gardeners, some of it while the suit was under review. 330 families farmed those 360 plots, but the plots economically and socially supported large portions of neighborhoods, provided families with extra income, children with a place to play, and immigrant palettes with hard-to-find foods from their home countries (most of the gardeners were of Latin American descent).

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The garden was ultimately destroyed in 2006, despite star-studded protests and international media attention. Luckily, many of the gardeners have since found new plots.

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You can bring this movie to your neighborhood independent theatre- click on the contact link on the movie makers' website for questions about distribution. Be sure to watch the trailer. It's a movie that will make a food activist out of you!

Mark Bittman on TED

Another brilliant 20-minute talk from TED. He talks about the history of industrialized food, and the damage that our junk food and meat-heavy diet is doing to our environment.

Carolyn, I'm posting this specifically with your husband in mind...

Civilization!* (*Some Restrictions Apply)