A beautiful video...

...about scale.

Industrial scale, bacteria and food safety

If there are going to be plagues in the "last days" as scriptures predict they will likely come about in part due to the weakening of our immune systems from eating industrial and refined foods. Industrial foods because of the culture of sterility we've inherited due to large-scale industrial processes and a reversed sense of what is safe (with mass-distribution safety is always compromised). The sterile canning process attempts to eliminate all bacteria, thus we associate bacteria with sickness and death. The trouble with this view is that it works against nature. The canning process also invites botulism because botulism thrives in environments where other bacteria cannot live. When we ferment foods, bacteria growth is encouraged and nature dictates that the good bacteria overcome the bad rendering fermented foods intrinsically safe while at the same time providing a health-sustaining boost to our immune systems. Three great videos: Video 1, Video 2, Video 3 (thank you Sandor Katz). The trouble with refined foods is that we destroy the symbiotic relationships in foods as they come from nature by separating the parts from each other (white part of wheat and bran, etc). The symbiotic relationships in the whole foods often help prevent disease, too.

Centralization and the democratization of hurt in the economic crisis

I believe that Barack Obama is doing his best in our current crisis which is pretty darn good as Presidents go. Having said that, he's coasting along on many of the same assumptions that got us to this low point: Big/more is better, more ease amounts to better quality of life, etc. When a centralized economy tumbles the pain is spread widely because when such an economy is booming people forget how to do for themselves and those in their communities because it just doesn't seem necessary. "Why not just pay someone to do it for us? Isn't that a sign of success in addition to helping the economy?" In this state of mind, it's easy to forget the impact of the capitalist dogma that says dependence is the name of the game. Dependence may be good for business, but it has real consequences when people are left dependent on things that suddenly disappear. People may be able to learn to do things again, but the more dependent people are when they start trying to relearn what was lost, the more painful the transition. As painful as it may be, I believe it can be done and there is hidden soul satisfaction in the processes that may yet convince us that we didn't have it as good as we thought we did when we were "the greatest engine of wealth creation the world has ever known". At least I hope and pray it does!

Community based economy

A small-scale community based economy could largely replace government regulation with the "organic" regulation that comes with knowing your customers because you live near them, grew up with them, etc. Also, it would remove the temptation to "game the system" or otherwise cheat, either from the bottom or the top because the payoff wouldn't be as big.

Intolerable Beauty. Photos by Chris Jordan & Chris Dunker

Technically, "Intolerable Beauty" is the title of the first group of photographs only, but I thought it fit both so that's what I called the whole post (to be fair).

Photographs of the awful scale of our waste. Click on "Intolerable Beauty" after clicking here.
Thanks for the tip Caleb!

Photographs of the awful scale of our industry. After clicking here click on (in this order):
1) mouse over the "di" logo
2) click "Gallery"
3) click "Industrial"
4) click "Geneva Steel"

Geneva Steel was a short drive from where I now live. A man's life was not worth a dime there. Good riddance.

Specialization of populations

Great interview on KUER's Radio West about the phenomenon of choosing to live with people who think/believe/vote the way we do and the damage it has done to our nation. Click here to listen. (The player is on the top left hand side of the web page).

Undeniable intangibles

CD's and mp3's are to vinyl albums as airplanes are to trains. These are aspects of scale which don't have to do with size, but a graduated series denoting levels of simplicity and speed. I argue that a vinyl album sounds and feels far better than their digital counterparts not just because of the sound itself but also because of the fact that we can see and understand what's going on as the sound is generated. They don't leave us behind technologically. If a belt drive on a turntable breaks we can rig up a new one with a long rubber band. If we hear a pop in the middle of a song we can work to gently clean the impurity off with a little fluid. This intangible element preserved a sense of pride of ownership, a sense of stewardship. You could tell a lot about a person by looking at his record collection, totally aside from the music they contained. Back when CD's began to take over I remember the vinyl die-hards talking about the "warmth" of music played back on records which resulted from the fact that the full sound was recorded on the disk and not just a tinny-sounding sample. They were absolutely right. Because record albums are so simple technologically, they are more approachable, more participatory. In other words more humane. Is it any wonder they seem to be making a comeback?

Likewise with trains as compared to airplanes. Because they travel more slowly, trains seem to be at one with the landscape and the small towns and large cities they criss-cross through. People develop real feelings for trains because they exist at a more human scale. In spite of their shear engineering muscle there's a sense that trains are a kind of humble servant, like an old friend. In contrast airplanes have become a kind of brutal taskmaster. In a plane, gone is the sense of history, rumination and unfolding geography. Maybe because it preserves these things, train travel seems to do a better job of preparing a person emotionally and spiritually for arrival at their destination. Perhaps in the same sense that the needle of a record expresses every detail of the music, a train doesn't abbreviate the terrain or the necessary richness of the journey. (Maybe jet lag is the body's attempt to make up for in dreaming, what was lost in wakeful experience). Instead all that remains in airplane travel is the schedule, the evaluation of service, amenities, etc. What a shame. Who knows, maybe train travel will make a comeback, too.

Standardization in retail and restaurants

I probably don't have to tell you that you can go practically anywhere in America and find many of the same stores and restaurants. This stinks. Of course, this phenomenon is the result of massive scale. By tuning our tastes to narrower and narrower possibilities these giants have removed much culture, surprise and fun and generally made life worse for Americans-not to mention fed us pure trash. Sadly some people prefer it this way. Ever notice how people rarely gather at chain restaurants? (with the possible exception of bored-out-of-their-mind teenagers) Real neighborhood establishments attract locals and become a place for them to hold court. This is an important part of their character. My brother travels for work much of the year and has a policy of only eating at mom-and-pop establishments. Fortunately he can still do this without starving. If more of us did, I think we could reverse this awful trend.