Cechomor - Vcelin

OH! The sound of the Sekier kitchen in Zajezová!!! Where Peto Rasta was frying Sauerkraut pancakes on the big stove, plum jam was produced and apples dried...and I got to drink spicy Primula veris tea (besides Silvovcie, of course). I feel like "heading east".

Hollow, circle

Reading about social constructionism...
It goes a bit too far.
There is supposedly no reality as such, just the social construction of knowledge and reality.
And who is constructing this reality?
The constructed.
Who constructed the socially constructed?
Neither the egg nor the chicken.
We come back to Steiner's example: the thought of a hot burning steel does not burn, but the steel does.
Does anything like a hot, burning steel exist or is it just socially constructed?
Is there a reality beside the text?
Is there a truth to be discovered?
I've got burned too many times to belive there isn't.

Phosphorous scarcity?

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for all plants and animals. We get our P through the food we eat, which has been fertilized by mineral or organic P fertilizers. Indeed, 90% of the P society uses is for food production. Modern agricultural systems are dependent on continual inputs of P fertilizers processed from phosphate rock. Phosphate rock is mined in only a few countries, including China, the US and Western Sahara/Morocco. Yet these P reserves are becoming increasingly scarce. Studies suggest current reserves will be depleted within 50-100 years. Further, a global peak in P reserves could occur by 2040. While the exact timing might be disputed, it is widely accepted that the quality of P rock is decreasing and cost increasing. The price of phosphate rock has risen seven-fold in the last 14 months alone.The P situation has many similarities with oil, yet worse than oil, there is no substitute for P in food production.

http://www.phosphorusfutures.net/
Yet another argument for sustainable agriuclture, that recycles nutrients as much as possible within the farm.

Fed up with student life

As I was walking to my current house I was reflecting on the disadvantages of student life, sharing a house with strangers. As if to support those negative grumbling, when I entered the house, who was sleeping on the kitchen table? The big, fat cat.
The big, fat cat that slept on my bed yesterday because the landlady went into my room for no apparent reason and left the door open.
I like cats. But I also like hygiene. Therefore my love for cats unfolds solely when I meet them in the garden.
When I opened the fridge to put something on my shelf, a smelly meat or fish can with open lid I found. 1. I want a little shelf in the fridge, just for ME! 2. I can't stand smelly meats...I will never forgive that flatmate who cooked liver, when my room was next to the kitchen. In the evening when I want to boil some greens, the kitchen is occupied again with someone frying some meat. I can't stand the smell and decide to fast that evening; drink lots of tea instead.
When I want to go and have shower, someone leaps into the bath a second before me and stays forever.
I was about to say something unfair, but now the heating is working again. At over 60 Decibel. But fortunately radio AND TV are on maximum volume and therefore I can hardly distinguish the pumping of the heating.
Finally, after a week of intermittent searches, I discovered where my cookies landed. In the cupbord of one of the housemates, it's half gone already. Later when I decided to steal some cookies back they were all gone.
I reached a stage in which I stop searching immediately when I miss something. A private letter? My lotion? Oh, maybe a flatmate borrowed it. That's fine. I'm used to that.
Oh, "home, home"? Where that is? People are so impolite and tactless to ask! The last thing I considered to be "home", about a decado ago, my parents are scratching each others eyes out to decide what's gonna happen with it. Well, why do I make a fuzz of this? It's quite important for me to have a little private cave to lie back and relax after the mammoth hunt.

I want to go into my little garden,
Want to water my flowers
A hunchbacked little man stands there,
Starts at once to sneeze.

I want to go into my little kitchen,
Want to cook my little soup,
A hunchbacked little man stands there,
He's broken my little pot.

I want to go into my little bedroom,
Want to eat my little compote,
A hunchbacked little man stands there,
He's already eaten half of it.

I want to go to the attic,
Want to fetch some little wood,
A hunchbacked little man stands there,
He's already stolen half of it.

When I come at my little bench,
Want to pray a little bit,
The hunchbacked little man stands there,
Starts at once to speak:
Dear little child, please:Pray for the hunchbacked little man!

(Das bucklig Maennlein)

The orbit of Venus

The orbit of Venus is said to be more or less like that, and biodynamic farmers say that's where flowers get their pentagonal symetry from. Don't get it, but looks beautiful.
(a hint from Steiner's Agricultural course: there is the seed chaos and there are the cosmic forces in the soil...)

Whatever

Der Weise tief bekümmert spricht:
"An guten Dingen fehlt es nicht,
zu lindern jeden Leids Gewalt.
...nur kennen müsste man sie halt."

i.e. The sage says in deep sorrow: "There is a cure for every ailment! The trouble is that we don't know them."

This is however not the case for agricultural marginalization, an ailment not well understood yet, for which plenty of solutions are known. But they cannot be implemented when ministers are whistling and looking sideways, consumers are not willing to pay for what is their birthright and farmers are not quite sure why all this stuff is happeing to them.

Das Abschreckende Beispiel

Das Abschreckende Beispiel.
The deterrent example.
O exemplo dissuasor.

It is a shame that we must wait until Judgment day for justice to prevail in some of our worldly affaires...

Colonialism

Colonialism is the extension of a nation's sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler or exploitation colonies in which indigenous populations are directly ruled, displaced, or exterminated. Colonizing nations generally dominate the resources, labor, and markets of the colonial territory, and may also impose socio-cultural, religious, and linguistic structures on the indigenous population (see also cultural imperialism). It is essentially a system of direct political, economic, and cultural intervention and hegemony by a powerful country in a weaker one. Though the word colonialism is often used interchangeably with imperialism, the latter is sometimes used more broadly as it covers control exercised informally (via influence) as well as formal military control or economic leverage.
The term colonialism may also be used to refer to an ideology or a set of beliefs used to legitimize or promote this system. Colonialism was often based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized; some observers link such beliefs to racism and pseudo-scientific theories dating from the 18th to the 19th centuries. In the western world, this led to a form of proto-social Darwinism that placed white people at the top of the animal kingdom, "naturally" in charge of dominating non-European aboriginal populations.

Copy-pasted from Wikipedia, due to its immediate relevance to current rural development practice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism

Ich Warte

Ich warte bis ein Stückchen Weltraumschrott
direkt vor meine Füsse fällt.
Ich warte unverdrossen.

Rambling

Oddly enough wandering around Wivenhoe woods did not calm me at all. Please give me mood and self-esteem tests before and after. I'm sure it got worse. Not because the woods weren't nice, it is just that they keep me reminding of paradise lost.

It is a basic human need to go for a chestnut hunt in autumn and to be free to collect wild mushrooms... More: it is a human right. A right that is being denied to us.

How can I get so upset about this? What's the "mission of anger"?...soon will I know.
It is being at home in John Seymours books, more than in any place of the world. Thoreau's Walden sickened me because the character reminds me of an anti-social bloke, of an anti-social movement. Charousek's desire to drive Aaron Wassertrum into suicide...
But Seymour! Take those pages out of how to slaughter the pig, the rabbits and the sheep and the book is heaven!...

Maybe it's just my personal version of heaven, and I'm using Boyden (1989) to validate it, to say it's universal, the need to be close to nature and to be able to derive a secure living of the natural resoruces around you...

Inbuilt obsolescence

e-escolinha: megalomaniac nonsense

They are pointing their arrow nowhere. In Portugal they always want to be more modern than the modern. That's THE AIM. Nothing else.
There is this big project that wants to provide a PC for each pupil. They are distributing cheap laptops to primary school children! The project counts with the support of entreprises like Vodafone, TMN and Sonae; they are selflessly helping our children to have access to computers and the internet at a very young age, so that they will not be excluded of IT knowledge. It is hoped that Portuguese children will become cosmopolitan and well versed in modern technologies at a very early age. In fact, it is very likely that they will become completely dull if they are not allowed to develop key things they need to develop at that early age...

Loriot - Das Harte Ei

"Mein Gott, sind Männer primitiv!"
"Morgen bringe ich sie um."

References as proof?

My lovely friend told me she doesn't like the writings of a certain author because it seems they all stream out of his imagination, as he uses no references or anything standard used in academic writing. I have to say: "you have to find out for yourself if what he says is valid or not". Unlike in academic writing where you are supposed to believe, not to question, when for a statement a reference is used. That's authoritative truth: "Don't doubt! It's proven!" (however, what methods and biases they used to prove it usually remains unknown).

With more than 200 scientific references read word by word and stored in my "Reference manager" I reached a point where I'm delighted when it is assumed as obvious that I will think for myself and not take in anything just because someone stated it before (which I refuse to do anyways).

"Der freien Wahrheit nur zu Leben,
Frieden mit der Satzung,
Die Meinung und Empfindung regelt, nie, nie einzugehen!"

(Hegel)