I really enjoy the straightforward, no-nonsense, practical, parent-to-parent approach of the Anti-Racist Parent blog. I think that is a quality that many homeschooling parents (and others) appreciate; I know I do.

Peace, Liza

Clay Shirkey is a complete genius; I highly recommend reading the whole post of his which ends with the story of looking for the mouse (he begins with the similarities between television and gin), as well as his book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

Meanwhile, we are looking forward to seeing you at the Circle M Market Farm Lambs & Lettuces Festival on June 7th, 2008!

Thanks for the plug vis-a-vis the 100-Mile-Map - its a great looking resource, I think, as well as one well worth checking when you head out for a drive.

I appreciate your cautions that The Secret could become “poison for people who are already desperate self-blamers,” and your call to think things through carefully and with humility. The Christian tradition I draw upon urges us to pursue wisdom (“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight.” Proverbs 4:7), to listen critically and test what we hear (1 John 4:1), and to make our plans with many advisers (Proverbs 15:22).

I think what all these books have in common (except possibly for the one about Vegas), is that they try to answer the perennial questions of how we human beings fit into the universe and how we can get a handle on our own lives. Those are questions with very high stakes (hmmm…back to Vegas again?), calling for a high degree of courage in the presence of uncertainty. While they might indeed have right answers and wrong answers (in addition to plentiful partial answers), no book — bestselling or obscure, wise or otherwise — and no other person — however admired or credentialed — can answer them for us. We rely on all this advice, these good books and loving fellowships and wise teachings — but in the end, nothing gets us out of the responsibility of judging and answering those questions for ourselves.

I think you have pushed the conversation forward immensely in terms of helping the WP community understand the utility — and power — of the new system. I’ll look forward to seeing your graphic presentation of a more usable interface!

The TIMS Study is a fantastic resoure for teachers; its the research that keeps on giving.

I wish you were around when I was looking for that word — utility. It’s a perfect description of what we’ve been given with the WordPress 2.5 widget interface. Now, we just need to get the usability part down.

Great article. This may even come in handy while teaching. ;)

And for those of you waiting on the last portion of Having Faith, don’t despair. Nicole and I are finding out just how hard this blogging thing is for forty-something parents — but we’re not giving up! Soon, very soon, we’ll meet the baby…

As is so often the case, many people take this to mean that blessing will come by simply hanging the scroll in its case on the door, like the protection promised by a charm or amulet. But the scripture is pretty clear that the words are not meant to impart protection to a passive believer. The intent of the words is to engage the believer in active cooperation, and the command is actually to keep the words constantly in mind and heart. Hanging the Mezuzah is the means to that end, not at all an end in itself.

The Mezuzah, oddly enough, resembles Steingraber’s quote in a number of ways. Basically a scroll containing the two chapters of the Torah, the main sentence, and the main essence is: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. Fleshed out and implicit in the rest of the scroll is the idea that God is unique, and takes care of us, and should thus be honored, loved and obeyed.

I think much of the Heavy Living we do on the earth relates to our inability to hold in our minds at all times these concepts. In Jewish tradition, you touch the little box holding the Mezuzah every time you go through your door. If we paused each time we left our house to contemplate the God, and the earth, that made and shelters us; and further thought how we might best live in honor of that Creation, we’d likely walk much more in harmony with both. And with each other.

This chapter told a lot of stories familiar to mine: our four kids all had high lead levels as toddlers, having been born in Chicago and allowed to play in the dirt outside our wood-frame home. I mistakenly believed it healthy for children to crawl, play, dig and even lick up a bit of dirt now and then. Tonkas were some of the first toys we invested in as new parents. But then our pediatrician informed us of the results of the blood tests required for every Chicago child: our kids were all at 6 or more ppm. At 10 the state could take our home from us. So we hired a private consulting company to find out where the problems were, and they were everywhere. The dirt next to the house was the highest concentration, since the homes had once been wood-sided and repeatedly scraped and re-painted with lead. We stopped growing vegetables entirely and converted the gardens to perennials. The interior trim, all lead. The consultants’ advice was to cover it all in packing tape until the kids were less vulnerable. We didn’t take that tape off for over a decade - by then we were re-painting everything in preparation for selling the house, and the kids were all pre-teens. Still, we sold the house to a family with toddlers, and they were duly informed, but the situation had been the same in every house they’d looked at.

Well, I’m determined that my grandchildren will enjoy playing with Tonkas here on this Wisconsin homestead, and much of our work here involves healing the land, though more from compaction and pesticides than lead. But it’s sobering to read the high rates of cancer and other ills Steingraber reports in farming-country families. One our closest farmer neighbors here has lost two members to cancer in the past three years. All of the farms adjacent to ours use conventional methods: herbicides, pesticides, GMO varieties that cross-pollinate with our heirlooms. This is the air we breath now.

There is no longer any possibility of escaping the effects of environmental toxins anywhere in the world. And that’s a sobering thought, but perhaps a hopeful one. We have no choice, really, but to pull together, city and country, first world and third, to make a change. And how will we do it?

I recently attended the American Public Health Conference and there was a great panel discussion on health and global warming. Talk about near-future health implications — the disease burden is likely to expand dramatically — and it is expected to be the worst in places that aren’t major environmental polluters: Africa will be the worst hit. And I worry about that — and am enraged by the unfairness of it. It’s a whole new kind of injustice about to perpetrated by the wealthiest of nations.

But back to KM’s earlier thought — that acting locally, even if you start slowly, is a start. And so we try to walk where we can. And we buy milk at a local dairy that doesn’t use hormones and feeds cows on grass, though not in winter. Not only does it seem better ecologically, the milk tastes amazing. And the process is warm and friendly. We know the people who produce our milk.

That brings me to MK’s post from last week. I’ve been turning over her words — and the challenge of marketing the farm without the ‘label’ of organic. And it came to me today that community-based action shouldn’t really be about labels. In fact, in communities labels matter little. Because labels are just a short-cut to what something or someone really is. Labels deny complexity and nuance. And healthy communities are all about nuance. It’s about being who you are but accepting others for who they are too. In big cities, it’s pretty easy to be selective. To insist on the label being right. And its also pretty easy to find friends that have nearly identical belief systems. But when you live in community with others, one is forced to recognize the strengths in difference — otherwise the community flounders. -mjs

I’ve at least one more Leopold post in the works. When you do pick him up, you’ll find him well worth your time. :-)

The thing is, most of the time I simply don’t what to know what I’m absorbing in the shower. I just want to enjoy my shower! But to live like that is to live sick and consign others to the same. It’s cowardly and lazy and I confess that I’m guilty.

So what are we to do? I think maybe read, talk and read some more. Nicole’s recipe of prayer, medicine and exercise sounds pretty good, with “clean food” in the place of medicine most of the time for most of us. And then I think that when we find ourselves with energy, we should commit ourselves to making some impact of some kind. Even something as simple as eating a locally grown meal once a week, cleaning most often with vinegar instead of bleach or re-using plastic shopping bags can add up.

Nicole, you ask some great questions about “managing truth.” As a former newspaper reporter, I’m well aware that the management of truth is an inescapable part of all communication. Even one’s best attempt at being “objective” in reporting any event, either personal or public, will fall far short.

But I’m especially challenged now as a market grower of meat and vegetables to be transparent in my life, work and reporting and to manage truth wisely. As a small, non-certified organic produce provider, I’m the only person representing my vegetables. All of my management decisions are made here in private on my farm. A wonderful thing about the CSA model is that it invites customers onto the farm to actually participate in the care of the land. Accountability at it’s best.

With the meat, I struggle more to represent our husbanding practices faithfully, because we’ve currently chosen to feed most of our animals (all but the chickens) locally rather than organically. Which means until some of our neighbors start growing organic grains, our grass-fed animals are supplemented with conventional corn/soy mixes that most certainly contain GMO materials and pesticide residues. I’m uncomfortable with this state of affairs, but it’s the route we’ve chosen at this point since we feel better about buying from our neighbors than shipping in grains from far away.

Nevertheless, our meat is far different from the conventional factory-farmed sort that is widely available in grocery stores. Our animals are raised in fresh air and sunshine, rotated through fresh pastures and not crowded. They don’t receive any hormones, chemicals or antibiotics except in the case of severe illness, which rarely occurs with this sort of management. They are happy, loved and known - but not organic. So how do I effectively market such a product in a label-oriented culture? I struggle.

But thinkers like Steingraber make the struggle feel like good work, and I believe it is. Both her books have spurred me to work harder and research further to provide the best sort of diets for my animals, and hence, for my family and customers.

(I’ve been an English teacher myself, BTW, and I think the Panda book and related titles might be as much fun for an ESL class as for kids.)

I think what struck me most about the first chapter was how powerful the ideas of reproduction and fertility are in the psyche of many women. The pregnancy tests at home are really quite revolutionary — they have opened up an avenue of knowledge (and therefore power) about what is most fundamental, and most extraordinary, about biology. But it is that 3-5 minutes of waiting for the second line to show or not, and the incredibly strong feelings that hang in that small cradle of space and time, that are indelible, unforgettabe, and ultimately so very personal.

What I think I’m going to really enjoy about this book is that it promises to discuss the science (for me, a nurse, riveting) along side with what science does not adequately address — perseverance, faith, community — all the qualitative ‘gut’ stuff that shape life.

As for journey — it is fun to hear where everyone is. I, mother of 2 and almost 3 girls (12 days late and counting, and yes, I do find humor in this — thinking that I knew what to expect! How truly ridiculous!) I can’t help but think of the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” And how it really comes down to that wisdom piece, which takes so much trial and error to figure out — and for me, right now, almost 42 weeks gestation, and really for long before the transformation of motherhood, that wisdom (and often lack thereof) really has revolved around knowing one’s energy, one’s potential and one’s limits at any given time. Because given limitless energy, very little is impossible. But energy is highly limited. How best to deploy one’s energy in the world is critical to do wisely. For me, it is this ‘wisdom’ that determines both the impact in one’s personal journey and how that journey intersects with the world.

I guess right now my journey is raising my children with my wonderful husband and learning self-sufficiency and the “old” ways. I’m thrilled with wool and poop (animal, that is) and vegetables and seed catalogs and the smell of hay and I could go on and on.

How did I get on this path? I’m not sure. Where am I going? I’m not sure. But I am sure of something - this is the path I’m meant to take. I am on the right one. I can feel it in my heart.

I can’t wait to read the book!

What journey am I on right now that is profoundly changing me?

1. Raising our children
2. Supporting my spouse’s work
3. Becoming a digital citizen

Each of these things keeps on challenging me to reach farther, and I’m grateful to be on these roads.

My first response to this book has been amazement. In spite of my stint in the public-school sex-ed stream, as well as my own homeschool curriculum development on the subject, I had no idea of the sorts of things that went on in my womb! “Wow!” I said a million times in this first chapter. She’s like a Ms. Frizzle for adults, and our Magic School Bus ride takes us into her intimate thoughts as well as her intimate geography. Wonderful.

However, I did find it a bit less beautiful than I found “Living Downstream.” I’m not quite sure why, but I don’t find myself awed by the prose as I was in her first book.

Still, I’m excited to go on, and to do it together.

And thanks to all of those who have served, are serving and will serve our country in the future. May you be honored and cared for by your fellow citizens, and in the communities that you call home.