text:
A Debtors Bill of Rights
ñ Article 1: The right to a fair and sustainable economy
ñ Article 2: The right to a clean and sustainable environment
ñ Article 3. The right to democratic decision-making
ñ Article 4. The right to a free, fair and vibrant market economy
ñ Article 5: The right to a rich and rewarding social life
ñ Article 6: The freedom to choose to labor
ñ Article 7: The right to live by ones principles and faith
ñ Article 8: The right to be free of technologically intrusive manipulation
ñ Article 9. The right to be free of the moral obligation to honor financial debt.
ñ Article 10: The right to withhold debt payments to effect justice and fairness
The Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution sought to protect the minority of citizens from the tyranny of the majority. Today the threat to our freedom lies in the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny minority and in our burden of maintaining, largely for their benefit, perpetual economic growth. Both of these threats are rooted in an economy built on a foundation of debt and a society whose major feature has come to be its division into debtors (those who pay out more, directly or indirectly, in interest and fees than they receive) and creditors (who receive more in interest and/or dividends than they pay out). The latter comprise a tiny proportion of the population, yet own the vast majority of wealth and wield disproportionate power.
Consequently we require a Debtors Bill of Rights to correct the distortion of our economy created by the requirements of indebtedness and perpetual economic growth and the consequent harms that these requirements inflict on all citizens and countries of the world. Because of our ideas of debt, interest and return on capital, the need for perpetual capital growth has come to rival all others, including the need to eat, to breathe, to ensure justice and to aid those in need.
Our indebtedness stems from a monetary system in which every dollar that is created is someone's debt. Money is lent into existence. Consequently every dollar, euro, or pound must earn interest. The interest it earns goes to the bank and the people who buy the debt. This not only concentrates wealth in the hands of a few, but it also exerts constant pressure for economic growth at any cost in order to maintain the interest payments on the money lent.
At the time of the writing of the U.S. Constitution, none of the framers could have possibly imagined an economy built on the principle of perpetual growth. Nor could they have imagined an economy built on a foundation of debt. Furthermore, the intellectual founders of the field of economics, such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill, never envisioned an economy that required perpetual growth; they assumed that the field of economics would help grow the economy to a point that all, in the words of John Maynard Keynes, could live wisely, agreeably and well.
The division of society into debtors and creditors, and the necessity of perpetual growth transforms our society into the equivalent of a company town, whose sole purpose for existence is to return invested capital to the owners and whose inhabitants are forever tied to the company by debt. The company, in turn, exists to return capital to investors.
Debtors are disciplined to accept the repayment of debt, not only as a legal, but as a moral obligation. Moreover creditors insist that debtors willingly accept this obligation; however without debt our present economic system cannot function. Money is privately created by debt, debt assumed, first by the government through the issue of government securities and, second, debt assumed by citizens, corporations, and governments through money lent by banks. Given the fact that debt and the obligation to pay interest is a prerequisite for the functioning of the economy, it is only fair and just that, in return for assuming debt, there be a debtors bill of rights to protect debtors from the social, political and environmental harms necessitated by debt, as well as from creditors, who while benefiting economically from present economic arrangements, also suffer its environmental and social harms.
The quest for the endless accumulation of capital that debt requires rules, not only our economy, but our lives. We must do everything that we can to ensure perpetual growth, even if it requires the sacrifice of our environment, our family and social life, political freedoms, health, happiness and well-being. It requires that we labor more for less, create and tolerate societies of grotesque inequality and injustice, develop systems of persuasion, manipulation and surveillance that are completely foreign to the ideals on which our society was founded, and distort the true market economy to which we aspire. The requirement for interest on debt and the subsequent return on capital is responsible for the fact that we sacrifice the freedom that we have to create the kind of world that we desire for our children and for future generations. For these reasons, and to correct the distortions inflicted on our market economy, we call for the adoption of the following articles of debtors rights.
Article 1: The right to a fair and sustainable economy
We have created an economy that requires for its survival perpetual growth[1]. That is, we must spend, labor, produce and profit more this year than last and more next year than this in perpetuity. This is clearly unsustainable. If, in the United States, the national economy grew at the barely acceptable minimum of 3% a year[2], by the year 2100 we would need to increase GDP from about fifteen trillion dollars a year to some three hundred trillion, while global GDP would need to go from about sixty trillion today to a quadrillion dollars a year.[3] Yet many see even our present level of economic activity as unsustainable.
Most modern economists and government policy makers accept the desirability of perpetual growth as self-evident. Some have even argued that, it is not only desirable, but moral. But none, interestingly, have tried to explain why perpetual growth is necessary; that is why, when it doesnt occur, bad things happen. Why cant we spend, labor, produce and profit next year at the same rate as this? What was wrong with the rate of spending, labor, production and profit in, say 2002, or any other year in the last 50? Why is it never enough?
The reason is interest on debt, and the fact that money, as it is presently constituted, must, by producing interest or dividends, always work to produce more. There must be a constant return on capital that, in our present world, constitutes what we call growth. When the expected return on capital does not occur, that is when debtors default, when stocks dip, assets decline in value, when labor productivity and profits decline, and consumption falls, the necessary circulation of money slows or stops, creating crises of unemployment, bankruptcies, bank failures, social upheaval and political instability.
In the United States, the amount of money in circulation is determined largely by the privately-owned Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve creates money, first, by buying government bonds. The money paid by the Federal Reserve becomes the base money supply. The Federal Reserve then distributes assets to member banks. For each dollar the bank receives, it is permitted to lend nine dollars under the assumption that not all depositors will withdraw their money at the same time. In this fractional reserve banking system, the bank is required to hold only a fraction of what has been deposited and can lend the rest.
In addition each incremental expansion of the level of debt is an explicit assumption that the economic future will be greater than the present. And not just a little bit larger--the future will need to be exponentially larger than the present for the debts to be fully repaid. Debt, in effect, is a claim on future wealth. Consequently creditors, such as banks, pension funds, insurance companies, and governments have an enormous stake in the perpetual expansion of the economy. Without growth, debt makes no sense, for without growth where would the interest or dividends come from? And without the continued expansion of debt, the whole financial system would collapse.
But the requirement for perpetual growth places an ever increasing load on individual citizens to consume, labor, and profit. That is, not only must each person spend, labor and profit more this year than last and more next year than this, in perpetuity, the per capita obligation to spend, labor, produce and profit must also increase. Since the rate of global population growth (1.14%) is considerably lower than the necessary rate of economic growth (3 to 5%), the individual consumption, labor, and profit load must grow. For example, since 1940, the population of the United States has slightly more than doubled from 132 million people to some 310 million; but the growth of the economy, as measured by GDP and adjusted for inflation, has increased by a factor of nine. Some of this increased consumption, labor, production and profit load is lessened by new technologies of consumption, labor, production and profit. Thus whereas in 1940 consumers were limited in what and where they could consume, laborers limited by what they could produce, and investors limited in the number of investment instruments at their disposal or the speed of financial transactions, some of these limits have been transcended by technological innovations (often at the cost of jobs). However, the innovations cannot by any stretch be said to have matched the increased obligations that consumers have to spend, laborers have to produce, and investors have to profit in order for the economy to realize the return on capital required by present levels of debt.
Most economists assume that growth represents an increase in individual wealth. This is misleading. Growth is a necessity, not a choice. In order to maintain the necessary rate of capital accumulation that allows creditors to receive their necessary return on capital, citizens must increase their rate of consumption, labor, production and profit or face the consequences of unemployment, bankruptcy, poverty, and social unrest. In other words, either more individuals must be found to assume the consumption, labor or profit load required by perpetual growth (as evidenced in the growth in the United States of 2 or 3 income families), or individuals must themselves consume more goods and services, labor more, or find new ways to make money with money.
This is why our society has the characteristics of a company town; the vast majority of inhabitants are tied forever through debt to the company, whose wages can never be sufficient for the laborer to free themselves from the debt. Debtors, in other words, are dependent on the creditors whose fortunes and power rest on the debt owed to them.
Therefore, since debt is a requirement for our present economy to function, and since the economic rules in place require citizens to assume debt obligations (debt is not, as claimed, freely assumed), debtors have a right to be free of the ever-increasing obligation to consume, labor and profit for the sole purpose of ensuring that creditors receive their expected return on capital.
Article 2: The right to a clean and sustainable environment
The need for perpetual growth requires, not only an ever-increasing need to consume, labor, and profit, but an increasing conversion of natural capital into money. Consequently, our environment has suffered to the point that our access to clean air, water, and food is threatened. Creditors can, up to a point, protect themselves from environmental devastation and resource depletion. Their wealth allows them to live in and travel to the relatively few pristine habitats that remain. And their wealth protects them, up to a point, from increased prices of energy, oil and land. Debtors, however, already suffer disproportionately from the damage inflicted on the environment by the necessity of perpetual growth.
The relationship between economic growth and environmental devastation is already well-documented, particularly when it comes to man-made climate change. The diagrams below vividly illustrate the scope of resource use, depletion and destruction over the past two and a half centuries of capital growth.[4]
Of all the resources we require for perpetual growth (and there are thousands) none are as important as energy and water. Is it possible, given our economys need to double at least every 23 years (at a 3% growth rate), to intensify our rate of energy and water extraction? The global economy presently uses some 84 million barrels of oil a day (mbd), and each percent of growth requires at least a .27 increase in energy needs. We presently require 264,000 gallons per individual per year to produce our food. Every pound of wheat that produced in the U.S. using factory-farming methods requires 1000 gallons of water. Can these rates be sustained, particularly when counties such as China, India, and Brazil are growing at 5-10% a year and using resources at greater rates than the U.S.?
Furthermore, with the need for perpetual growth and the ever-increasing exploitation of resources, the prices of commodities, such as oil, must increase, therefore making it more difficult to profit and further increase the consumption, labor, and profit load of debtors.
While there is debate over how much oil remains, it is clear that the amount of energy we expend to extract it has increasedin 1930 it took one barrel of oil to extract 100; by the 1990s it was between 18:1 and 10:1, and we are approaching a situation in which it will require one barrel to produce three. And the prospects of alternative energy development are dubious at best. In order to replace the current level of global petroleum use, we would need either 6800 nuclear plants (there are now 400), 6-17 million megawatt wind towers, nearly 13 million acres of solar pv panels, or 16 million acres of soybean, biofuel production (which is 135% of current agricultural land).
Put another way, if alternative energy sources grew at the rate of 25% a year over the next 14 years, they would supply roughly 1% of the global energy needs.
And the rapid decline of natural resources, on which our entire economy is based, is only one of many environmental consequences of the need for perpetual growth. In the Third World, almost 80% of all deaths are attributable to environmental causes. The increasing demand for water for industrial and agricultural purposes has left over half the world without clean drinking water. Industrial pollutants increase respiratory illness, while our food supply is degraded by the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, and other toxic substances.
Article 3. The right to democratic decision-making
The United States Constitution calls for some degree of citizen participation in decision-making, virtually all of the major economies of the world adhere to some sort of democratic ideal, and governmental leaders espouse that ideal for developing economies. Yet the primacy for an ever-increasing return on capital requires governments to place the needs of capital above the needs of people. This, in turn, requires that laws, rules and regulations be enacted that reduce the rights of citizens to democratic decision-making, particularly when those decisions might inhibit capital growth. Democracy is not, as even economists recognize, conducive to perpetual economic growth, if only because, if given the freedom to choose, citizens will opt for life quality (e.g. a clean environment, more leisure time, etc.) over capital accumulation and the expansion of creditor wealth.
There are at least three ways in which democratic rights have been systematically reduced to ensure capital growth and the return on capital required by creditors. The first is the rule that corporations are persons that originated with a United States Supreme Court decision in 1886 in a case involving a dispute between Santa Clara, California and the Santa Fe railroad over responsibility for a fence. The Justice (or his recording clerk), in his finding inserted in the decision, that found in favor of the railroad, that the 14th amendment freeing slaves, implicitly also recognized corporations as persons. The result, of course, is that corporations now have the same political rights (although not necessarily the same obligations) as citizens, rights expanded by the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United that virtually removed any limits to corporate spending on political campaigns. In 2010 virtually one-third of the almost three and a half billion dollars donated for political campaigns, came from industry. Women and men seeking election or re-election to public office must choose to either represent industries with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on campaign donations, or individual citizens with a fraction of potential donations. Since success at being elected or re-elected to public office depends heavily on fund raising, our elected representatives themselves are not free to listen to the majority, but must attend to the needs of those with money.
The major problem is that corporations, unlike persons, exist solely to return profit to owners and investors; unlike persons they cannot empathize with the needy or accept responsibility for the needs of future generations. Corporations exist in the short-term world of the bottom line, and yet we have granted them enormous power, as persons, to define that world. And corporations, themselves, are bound to creditors whose interest they must represent.
The second way in which democratic rights are abridged is through legislation that assigns to non-democratic institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Trade Organization (WTO), the power to impose penalties on U.S. corporations and citizens for violations of trade rules imposed by unelected bureaucrats. Thus regardless of whether the removal of trade barriers, for example, benefits or penalizes citizens or groups, these groups have little recourse to having their case heard in any democratic forum. Furthermore, by assigning rights to dictate economic policy to such organizations, we preclude the ability to attend to other global needs. The United States refusal to join in any global environmental mechanism or protocol, for example, likely arises from the fear that the rulings of such an organization would conflict with that of the WTO, IMF, or other global institution designed to assure perpetual capital accumulation.
The third way that perpetual growth undermines democratic freedoms is the need to build security states and military-type organizations to mute protest that inevitably arises with the accumulation of debt and the requirement of perpetual capital growth. These military organizations are also made necessary by the need of nations to acquire and protect markets and resources required to ensure growth. These military organizations, fed by the ever-increasing arms trade, have led in many countries, and threaten to do in others, to militarily-controlled governments who systematically limit peoples freedoms. In such societies, even peaceful protests, come to be seen as essential threats. With such a development, no country is free from the threat of military domination.
Article 4. The right to a free, fair and vibrant market economy
A debtors bill of rights does not undermine a market economy. It promotes and protects it. A market economy is based on citizens freely producing and exchanging goods in exchange for money, each party in the interaction, as Adam Smith realized, gaining through the transactions. Capitalism, as it came to be called, and as envisioned by Adam Smith, was a utopian vision. Regardless of whether Adam Smiths invisible hand could have led to the kind of society he envisioned, the economy that has resulted is clearly not it.
For example, a debt economy, and the consequent need for perpetual growth, promotes financial crises and instability. The financial system, as it now operates, requires banks to issue more and more debt, both to maintain and increase the money supply, to increase corporate assets, and ensure creditors return on capital. But the increased debt requires even greater rates of economic growth.
Given the present level of consumer, corporate, business and government debt in the United States (a total of some 60 trillion dollars) and the current amount of capital generation as measured by GDP (some 15 trillion a year), and assuming a required rate of return on all debt of 7% over 10 years, the necessary initial growth rate required to service that debt is approximately 15% a year, a rate of growth reached in the United States only briefly during World War II.[5] It is little wonder that, given the structure of our financial system, there have been, over the past 200 years, some 250 banking crises in the developed world, lasting an average of 7 years. Put another way, the so-called developed economies have spent approximately one out of every 4 years in a financial crisis of one sort or another. The World Bank has identified no less that 96 major banking crises and 178 monetary crises over the past 25 years. This is not a characteristic of a healthy market economy.
Furthermore, a vibrant economy requires incentives to circulate wealth; a debt and interest economy promotes hoarding and the investment of resources in non-productive, but capital accumulating, activities. The present global economic crisis is due less to any contraction in wealth than it is to creditors withholding capital or investing it in non-circulating or illiquid sources such as land, precious metals, or complex derivatives.
Article 5: The right to a rich and rewarding social life
The requirement for perpetual capital accumulation also undermines our ability for a rich, rewarding and meaningful social life.
The increase in debt and the accompanying need to perpetually consume, labor, produce and profit reduces time spent on non-economic, but otherwise essential activities. In other societies, community members allocate a portion of their time to collective actions that serve the common good. We compensate for that by allocating a portion of our income to taxes, with which people are hired to perform necessary tasks for which we no longer have the time, such as maintaining infrastructure, teaching our children, caring for the elderly, delivering the mail, defending borders, and so on. But as debt increases, and, consequently as the need to work increases, instead of raising the share we, particularly creditors, contribute to these functions, we have, through a regressive tax code, reduced it, thus further impoverishing our community, and further accelerating the rate at which money flows from debtors to creditors. By reducing the share we contribute to the common good, we maintain the illusion of growth. Creditors, are increasingly taking for themselves the resources that at one time would have been devoted to education, childcare, care of the elderly, community infrastructure and so forth.
The necessity for perpetual growth and the servicing of debt means that people spend less time with family; for example, the conflict between work and family is higher in the United States than elsewhere in the developed world. The typical American middle-income family works, on average, 11 more hours a week in 2006 than it did in 1979.[6]
The need for perpetual growth, and the crises of unemployment that it generates, also turns citizens against citizens, increasing gender, racial and ethnic divides. An economy built on capital accumulation, in which citizens must generate interest on debt, means that they must somehow capture the money of others with which to pay that debt.[7]
An economy based on debt, also must increase the gap between rich and poor. Some economists argue that economic growth is necessary to reduce poverty, and that increases in wealth will trickle down to the less rich. However, if an economy is based on debt, interest and the return on capital, money will not trickle down, but, rather, trickle up. Debt is a regressive tax. Interest and dividends flow to the top 1 to 5% of the population, that is those who earn more from interest and dividends than they pay, directly or indirectly, in interest. It should not be surprising, that given the massive increase in debt over the past two decades, that the gap between rich and poor is greater than any time in almost 100 years and that the bottom 30 percent of American families has seen their median income fall by 29% since 1979.
The need for increased capital accumulation must also undermine group solidarities while requiring psychologically-devastating individuation. Sharing and cooperation is not conducive to economic growth as it reduces the need to consume and reduces the amount of time spent consuming, laboring and profiting. Capital producing technologies, such as individualized digital devices, television, and video games, while increasing capital accumulation, promote a decline in face-to-face interactions. Perpetual growth requires that we devise methods to extract capital from even our most basic human activities.
National policies that undermine the formation and rights of labor unions may be necessary to increase corporate profits, but they destroy worker solidarity and cooperation, while reducing wages as well as safety in the workplace. Of course, corporations themselves, are likewise trapped in the need for endless growth, even if that requires exploitation of workers and withdrawal of support to communities in which they are located. The emergence of the corporate philosophy of shareholder value (and the subsequent decline in customer and community service) is a direct consequence of the requirements of corporations to maintain required growth rates and return capital to creditors.
Finally, the debt load of developing countries, debts that realistically can never be repaid, requires the increasing exploitation of land for industrial agriculture, forests for lumber products, and oil and other resources for energy. These developments, particularly in the developing world, force people off the land and forests where they might subsist into cities in search of wage labor. Consequently more than half the worlds population now live in urban areas, with some 60-80% of those in developing countries (as opposed to 6% in the developed world) living in slums with their associated social and health problems.
Article 6: The freedom to choose to labor
Economists argue that one of the major reasons for economic growth is the need to create jobs. The unspoken assumption seems to be that everyone wants to labor for wages. But that has never been true. When colonial powers dominated areas of Africa, Asia, South and North America, one of their first acts was to use debt to force people to labor. Great Britain, for example, facing a population in Africa who knew little of wage labor, and did not require it, immediately imposed head, and hut taxes to legislate debt that could only be paid through wage labor. This pattern was followed by all colonial and economic powers, and even used by organizations such as the World Bank, which lent money to Third World countries, money given largely to elites, but which saddled their citizens with levels of debt which is impossible to repay and which has resulted in the decimation of health, schools and the environment of these countries.
To a great extent, the need to labor may vary directly with the level of debt. With todays debt levels, virtually every member of a household must labor, some at multiple, wage-paying jobs. Yet this was not true 40-60 years ago, when most households could subsist on one income. In other words, economists concern for job creation is largely a factor of the need for people to labor to sustain the necessary return on capital to creditors. Few people can afford not to labor in a company town.
Obviously this link between debt and labor requires, at it did for colonial powers, forcing people to go into debt. Colonial officers did it simply by legislating it: everyone, by their virtue of having to pay a tax, was in debt. Today the means for creating debt are more sophisticated, led largely by the use of sophisticated marketing techniques to manufacture desires which can be met only through indebtedness.
But perhaps the most insidious violation of our right to a rich and rewarding social life occurs in the area of education, where we instill in our children almost from birth the importance of schooling, and then require that most go into debt for that same education. In the United States the average college student today finishes college with an average debt of $25,000. Student loans in the United States total over one trillion dollars. Thus college graduates today find themselves incorporated into the company town, forced to assume debt as the price of the job thus required to honor their debt. Even those countries in which a college education was considered a common good, are under increasing pressure by financial institutions to cut government expenses in order to service their debt and maintain the flow of capital to creditors.
Article 7: The right to live by ones principles and faith
The requirement for perpetual economic growth requires, ultimately, the evolution and imposition of a cultural and social system designed to maximize consumption, labor, and profit. Consequently this cultural and social system must impose on individuals severe limits on their choices of ways of living in the world. Some of these limits can be easily seen in the systematic destruction of the ways of life of indigenous peoples. The confiscation of land, restrictions on livelihoods and imposition of laws has destroyed any possibility of cultural continuity of indigenous societies. But what has been done in the name of capital growth to indigenous peoples, wealthy countries have done and are continuing to do to their own citizens.
Relationships of interdependence are difficult to establish and maintain given the requirement of people to endlessly consume, labor and profit. Consumption needs compete with ideals of sharing and generosity, while work requirements limit the opportunity for volunteerism. The need to profit and the ethic of shareholder value limits the philanthropic impulses, once great, of businesses and corporations.
The practice of religious faith is limited by the necessary increase in values that emphasize materialistic acquisition over spiritual development, sharing and giving. With the continually increasing need to consume, labor and profit, there is little time or opportunity for traditional religious observance, let alone reflection, contemplation, or meditation. How can a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian or follower of any faith find the time to pray, to congregate for religious observances, or perform community services required by her or his faith? How can a Buddhist or a Quaker find time for silent sitting? How can a lover of nature find time for a walk in the woods? It would be hard to imagine Confucius, the Buddha, Jesus or Mohammad or any of the great religious leaders of the past, countenancing the lives their followers are required to lead for the sake of perpetual capital accumulation.
The radical individualism required by the need for capital accumulation necessarily reduces any sense of mutual interdependence. As the requirement for growth increases, our ability to meaningfully relate to others and the world around us diminishes.
Article 8: The right to be free of technologically intrusive manipulation
We are taught to believe that debt is freely assumed; that people, as so-called rational actors, choose debt as the instrument through which to obtain what they desire. But desires are relative; what is considered desirable in one society, may not be desirable in another. What is desired by one person, neednt be desired by another. We clearly are not born with specific wants, other than those, such as food, shelter, care and companionship. Desires are manufactured. The acceptable inventory of material things is socially defined. And in a society of perpetual growth they must be incessantly enhanced.
The fabric of our culture certainly plays a major role in defining our wants. What do we need to be accepted by acquaintances? What material items must we possess to signal to others the kind of person we want to be or be seen as? Every society requires some material base through which people signal their identities and their connections to others. But in a society of perpetual growth, there can never be enough of these things. Consequently, it is necessary in a society of perpetual growth to constantly invent new and better ways to increase desires and wants.
A society in which people must believe that perpetual increase in consumption is a virtue, that perpetual capital accumulation is progress, that material possessions provide happiness and that there is no such thing as enough, requires the development of highly sophisticated technologies of manipulation and control. Whether we call it marketing, public relations, or propaganda, we have secured the research, skills and creativity of biologists, psychologists, engineers, anthropologists, artists, musicians, writers, educators and others to explicitly develop instruments of persuasion to create the desires, tastes and values most conducive to the patterns of consumption, labor and profit required to ensure perpetual capital accumulation. In a society of perpetual growth we must assign to the most creative among us the job of intensifying the wants of others.
Marketers, freed from governmental regulation, have devised methods to manipulate children to buy or nag their parents to buy, more and more. Public relations have advanced to the point that politicians can brag that we create our own reality. Political campaigns become spin competitions or selling campaigns. Technologies designed to help cure illness or repair broken bodies, such as magnetic resonance imaging devices, are used to increase the wants of children by studying the brains reaction to specific marketing stimuli.
Banks systematically promote mortgage, credit card, and automobile loans, often resorting to unethical or fraudulent means to convince people to assume debt. First-year college students are met on campus by other students paid to convince the new-comers to acquire credit cards (whose balance banks generally assume will be honored by parents); banks use mass mailings (subsidized through the U.S. Postal Service by taxpayers) to invite young people to obtain credit cards or loans; or use deceptive practices, as they did to sell home mortgages, to convince people to assume debt. Of course, banks themselves, are under the same pressures to grow as everyone else. The development of complex security instruments whose collapse in value contributed to our present economic crisis, were motivated, in part, by a desire to increase the amount of capital available for investment and the need for investment banks to grow and maintain their clients.
Article 9. The right to be free of the moral obligation to honor financial debt.
Why is it that people have a moral obligation to repay their debts, while banks do not have a moral obligation to extend credit, even when the money they lend is created by them and when the withholding of credit leads to individual suffering, as well as financial, social and political chaos? And how can people be said to have a moral obligation to repay their debts when corporations, national or local governments can unilaterally cancel or reorder debt obligations or unilaterally cancel negotiated pension rights, as they have done?
How can debtors have a moral obligation to repay debts, when at least 30 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 33 U.S. Senators, attempting to force budget cuts, voted against the government repaying its debt obligations?[8]
Legally we differentiate loans from liabilities, assuming that loans entail a legal (and moral) obligation to repay, but allow governments to label similar obligations as liabilities, that do not entail any legal obligation. Thus Social Security in the United States, funded by citizens contributions, is considered only a liability and can be and has been unilaterally modified by a Congressional Act by raising the retirement age.
Lending and investing requires risk to justify a demand for a return on capital. If risk is nullified through the idea that debt entails a moral, as well as a financial obligation, then there is no justification for interest and/or dividends. Yet government policies, particularly over the past two decades have virtually eliminated all risk by having taxpayers bail out investors and financial institutions. Thus creditors are protected from loss, leaving debtors to assume the burden. There is no morality in this.
People must accept debt to function in the current economic world. In effect, we have far more of an obligation to assume debt that we have an obligation to repay it, for without the assumption of debt, there would be no money, and therefore no economy.
Article 10: The right to withhold debt payments to effect justice and fairness
The founders of the United States recognized that people were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and could, therefore, alter or abolish government destructive of those rights. As outlined in this document, all citizens of the United States, and increasingly the world, are being systematically denied specific rights in the name of capital accumulation. Clearly money has become more important than a clean environment, a rewarding social life, and individual political freedoms. However, it is not government, per se, that is solely responsible for this development. Rather it is a financial system that has developed over the past three or four centuries in which money is created by debt and whose primary function is to make money with money. To be sure, government ceded these rights to private financial institutions as a way to eliminate debts accrued largely in war. But if governments ceded those rights, they can surely reclaim them in order to lift the burden imposed by debt and the need for perpetual growth.
At one time it may have been reasonable to issue money as debt. Theoretically such an arrangement reduces the possibility of excessive issues of currency and the monetary inflation that could ensue. Debt-based money is also a means of disciplining people to labor. However, debt-based money does not foster long-range thinking, does not motivate people to contribute to the common good, and is certainly not conducive to solving our environmental, social and political problems.
To reclaim financial rights and protect a true market economy, governments must themselves issue currency, rather than leaving that right solely to banks. This is not a radical request. This was done by some American colonies and is done by countries today. While a modest interest could be charged, most issues of currency should be through grants. Existing debts must be modified; the current debt level of countries, governments, businesses, and financial institutions is unsustainable and must be renegotiated. Student loan obligations, specifically, must be modified. Limits on interest rates must be lowered, laws regarding bankruptcy must be loosened, and the debts of developing countries must be renegotiated or, in some cases, eliminated. In a world not ruled by capital, we would have recognized that most of these countries are owed more by developed countries than they owe to multilateral institutions and global financial institutions. Local communities should be encouraged to develop their own currencies and economies. There are, of course, financial systems not founded on debt, most notably Islamic finance, and these, while imperfect, can serve as model for others. Reforms such as these would provide a path to the kind of societies envisioned by our founders and by classical economists.
The problem, of course, is that those who make the laws are those who, currently, benefit from the existing state of affairs. Therefore the question is, how do we initiate reform? Violent revolution is both immoral and fruitless, particularly given the technologies of surveillance and violence developed by nation-states in order to maintain the present state of affairs. Educational institutions and public demonstrations of dissent are useful, but depend on the willingness of corporate-controlled media to report, and, ultimately on legislative bodies to enact the required reform. The problem, of course, is that legislative bodies in virtually all countries are controlled by financial institutions; as one U.S. Senator put it in regard to the U.S. Congress, The banks own the place.
There is, however, one right that we maintain and that has the potential to promote changes that, in the long run, benefit everyone, and that is the right to withhold ones debt payments. People are told, of course, that repayment of debt is a moral obligation; but debt, as outlined above, is not freely entered into. As our economy is presently constituted, without debt, there would be no money. Furthermore, if governments and municipalities can, without penalty, default on pension obligations or renounce obligations to protect children, the poor and the elderly, surely we retain the right in the name of a just society to withhold our debt payments. By doing so, we deprive creditors, a small minority of our society, a source of their power and impel them to consider the harm that present arrangements inflict on all. A debt strike must not constitute a refusal to pay debts; rather it must be considered an act of civil disobedience to withhold debt payments, particularly on securitized debt (e.g. mortgages, automobiles, credit cards and student loans), until action is taken to reform the presently unsustainable financial system. This would not be a strike against finance, per se; some means of moving money from where it is to where it is needed is necessary for a thriving economic system. However, a financial system founded on debt and interest and the resulting need for perpetual growth is clearly unsustainable.
The mechanics of a debt strike are relatively easy to institute. A date in the future, perhaps a year off, should be set, at which point, unless there is significant movement to reform the financial system, citizens will withhold their debt payments. Until that date, there will be a good faith effort, perhaps led by some existing legislative or citizen group, or by a citizen group formed for the purpose, to draw up a series of reforms, such as some of those outlined above. The effort must be global in scope. The requirement for perpetual growth is not one faced only by the United States; it is faced by every country that has adopted a western-style financial system.
This group will need to decide what changes in the financial system or in the rules through which financial systems are created, constitute significant progress. If such progress does not occur, debtors will begin to withhold debt payments.
There will, naturally, be some concern on the part of debtors that their withholding of payments will result in some negative consequence (e.g. foreclosure or repossession of assets, fines, lowered credit rating, etc.) It is not against the law, however, to miss a debt payment, or two, three or four, for that matter. There will be an additional fee for late payments, but that is all. Moreover, it will require only a small minority (e.g. some 20%) to begin the strike to make it impossible for creditors (or the government or financial institutions) to effectively impose penalties. A debt strike action will immediately highlight for everyone the critical function of debt and, at the very least, initiate discussion on the consequences of debt and perpetual growth, the extent to which a tiny minority benefit from a debt economy, and the necessity to reform the financial system. This will not be, as mentioned above, a refusal to pay debts, but rather an act of civil disobedience to effect change that will not only benefit all, but save our economy from recurrent crises and collapse.
A debtors strike is not without its dangers. If the strike succeeds and there is a refusal to implement financial reform, the economy will collapse in a credit crisis. A debt strike, in that regard, is no different than a labor strike. As in a labor strike, all parties have a vested interest in changing a situation that threatens the firm with collapse. However without some form of financial reform, we remain in a world in which ephemeral economic gain can occur only by abandoning visions of free societies thriving in hospitable environments.
------- Richard H. Robbins
A selection of works particularly relevant to a Debtors Bill of Rights
Brown, Ellen Hodgson. 2010. The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free. Third Millenium Press
Daley, Herman. Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Beacon Press
El Diwany, Tarek 1997. The Problem with Interest. London: TA-HA Publishers
Garson, Barbara. 2001. Money Makes the World Go Around: One Investor Tracks Her Cash Through the Global Economy. Penguin
Graeber, David.. 2011. Debt: The First 5000 Years. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House
Hallsmith, Gwendolyn and Bernard Lietaer. 2011. Creating Wealth: Growing Local Economies with Local Currencies. New Society Publishers
Jackson, Tim. 2009. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Earthscan
Kamenetz, Anya. 2007. Generation Debt: How Our Future Was Sold Out For Student Loans, Credit Cards, No Benefits, And Tax Cuts for Rich Geezersand How to Fight Back. Riverhead Books
Kennedy, Margrit and Declan Kennedy. 1995. Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an Exchange Medium that Works for Everyone and Protects the Earth. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers
McKibben, Bill. 2007. Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. New York: Times Books
Martenson, Chris. 2011. The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future of Our Economy, Energy, and Environment. John Wiley & Sons
Polanyi, Karl 1957 [1944]. The Great Transformation. Beacon Press: Boston
Reinhart, Carmen M. and Keneth S. Rogoff. 2009. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton University Press
Robbins, Richard. 2011. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (5th Edition). Pearson Publishing
Speth, James Gustave. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. New Haven: Yale University Press
Williams, Brett. 2004. Debt for Sale: A Social History of the Credit Trap. University of Pennsylvania Press
[1] The term growth, of course, is highly misleading. Its opposites, such as stagnation, recession, decline, or reduction, tend to be negatively valued. We are, in fact, talking simply about capital accumulation.
[2] Economist Milton Friedman put the acceptable minimum at 5% real GDP a year.
[3] it is difficult to conceptualize what these huge numbers mean and what the difference is between, say, millions, billions and trillions, let alone quadrillions. To illustrate, if in the year 0, you had a trillion dollars (1012 or 10E12 in U.S. scientific notation) to spend, and you spent it at the rate of one million dollars (106 or 10E6) a day, you would spend a billion (1012 or 10E12) within 3 years, but, in 2012 you would still have almost 700 years remaining to spend the trillion. A quadrillion is 1015th (or 10E15). At one million dollars a day, it would take 2.74 million years to spend. Even if you spent at the rate of a million dollars a second, it would still take almost 32 years to spend a quadrillion. And if the U.S. economy grew only at the average rate since 1870 (1.8%), by 2100, a rate that economists characterize as stagnant, it would be 75 trillion (5 times what it is today) and the size of the global economy would be 300 trillion or more than 4 times what it is today.
[4] Figures From: Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure Will Steffen, Regina Angelina Sanderson, Peter D. Tyson, Jill Jðger, Pamela A. Matson, Berrien Moore III, Frank Oldfield, Katherine Richardson, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, Billie L. Turner, Robert J. Wasson. 2005. Springer. Pages 132-133
[5] See Michael Hodges, http://grandfather-economic-report.com/debt-summary-table.htm; Richard Robbins, 2011. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism)
[6] See The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict: The Poor, the Professionals, and the Missing Middle. Joan C. Williams and Heather Boushey. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/01/three_faces_report.html
[7] There is the story of the eleventh round, told by Gwendolyn Hallsmith and Bernard Lietaer (2011:19), in which a mysterious stranger introduces a monetary system into a small community by distributing 10 small circles of cowhide, each with the value of one chicken, to each family to facilitate the exchange of goods. The stranger imposed only one requirement on the community; that each family, after a years time, return to him, an extra circle (the eleventh round). The result, of course, is that each family can realize the eleventh round (the interest) only by taking it from another family.
[8]http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00011; http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/113/house/1/votes/30/


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March 20th has marked itself as a very special day. Our dear friend Katty Wong invited us to support an incredible gala, the 2nd Annual Spring Wing-Ding benefiting the UNICEF Chinese Children's Initiative; and, it happened to be the evening I was to meet my ever surprising Mr. Bo Robert's father, Bill. Fresh in from Indiana, the last thing I'm certain he expected to do was find himself shopping for a tuxedo; much less being dragged out by his incredibly proud son to a black tie fundraiser.
The location was the new Shan Social House; and under the elegant hand of our favorite Cory Martin, the evening was seamless. From arrivals and checking in; to walking the red carpet; to coveting the Bentley's… to having the bartender mix one of the most delicious concoctions; to an extraordinary banquet of Asian influenced treats… to the music, lighting, décor and what quickly became our favorite; the Mai Tai boat!
The Mai Tai boat room became our own, private court. The Empress, as she is so fondly referred to, though for the moment still also known as the magnificent Sue Wong swept in with with her handsome escort, Mr. Collier Landry; while the ever elegant Gabrielle Williams Choo and her dashing husband, Christoph Choo had already taken possession of the strategically key table - around which we all clambered.
Of course, you know my best friend and business partner, Jessica (Kill) looked absolutely stunning in her navy and lace gown and her guest Mr. Bill McCoy looked very dapper in his suit. Our stunning 'gladiator-girl' Vanessa Cater was absolutely resplendent in her black, strapless, Sue Wong original, and I have to confess, I was equally fortunate to have Sue dress me in one of her one-of-a-kind couture gowns, in black and pistachio green.
The evening was created by the amazing team behind the charity, including the stunning Christine Chiu and her husband, Dr. Gabriel Chiu; Laura and David McKenzie, Lily and John Maatta, Crystal and Rob Minkoff and as mentioned from the outset our dear friend, Katty Wong.
I gather from their press release, more than 300 guests of the Entertainment, Media, and Technology communities attended including Chin Han (The Dark Knight, Fringe-FOX, Arrow-CW), Harry Sham Jr. (Glee), Montel Williams (Actor, TV Personality), Julie Change (Good Day LA), Susanna Thompson (Arrow), Melanie Mar (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Millionaire Matchmaker), Dorothy Wang (Rich Kids of Beverly Hills), Kelly Hu (Arrow-CW, Warehouse 13-Syfy), Daniel Nguygen (2br1ba,The Goldbergs), and Tenille Houston (They Canyons, Bad Girls) – but as ever, it was our enclave of friends and family, that made the night perfect.
Joyce Chow, Winston Burris and Clinton Wallace all joined our fray as the evening went on and their photos, no doubt, more vivacious given that we were still next to the Mai Tai trough! We managed a great photo opp with the man of music, Mr. Steve Lillywhite; however the ubiquitous Jeff Rice decided to opt out of the photo adventures - though we noted that he stayed close enough to watch all the activity.
All said and done; it was truly one of my most special of evenings. In one regard, watching the pride of lineage float between father and son, and son and father with Bo and Bill was extraordinary. It comes as no wonder that two such true, honorable and astoundingly charming men bear the same genetic code.
In another, knowing what a difference everyone who attended the event made to the UNICEF Chinese Children's Initiative. Whether by financial participation or importantly, drawing much needed attention to the foundation and the work they actively do.
Writers additional note: for those who have asked, my social media name "handle" (on almost all the mediums) is @mcvcm.

subset: commoncrawl


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From the Frontier days when lumber and tourism were Michigan's first industries to exporting Michigan's automobiles to markets all over the country, the railroads of Michigan played a very important role in the state's development as a recreational destination and industrial powerhouse. Come along for a look back at Michigan's railroads from the 1950's through the 1980's, from Detroit to Grand Rapids, Mackinaw City and Marquette; from Lake Michigan to Lake Superior. Railroads covered include Amtrak, Ann Arbor, Chesapeake & Ohio, C&NW, Detroit & Mackinac, DT&I, Grand Trunk, Milwaukee Road, LS&I, Michigan Northern, New York Central, Penn Central, Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Soo Line.
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Rails Around Michigan Publicado 10 de marzo de 2014


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17:59, UK, Saturday 19 December 2009
The Indian rope trick is often described as the "world's greatest illusion" - yet a man in the slums of Delhi claims he can do it.
In fact, not just one man - but two.
First, the trick: it involves a rope being made to rise upwards and then once rigid, a young boy is encouraged to climb to the top.
In Indian folklore he disappeared at the top only to reappear after being called by the magician.
In the more elaborate versions, the magician himself climbs the rope after the boy and also disappears.
An array of severed limbs are then thrown down, the magician returns to earth, collects the limbs in a covered basket and the boy magically reappears unharmed.
Most magicians believe the trick to be impossible and back in 1934, the Magic Circle offered several hundred guineas to anyone who could do it.
Now, in a deprived area of the Indian capital, at least two men claim they can do the infamous trick.
The first and possibly the most well known is a man called Ishamuddin Khan.
There are pictures of him performing the trick on the internet and he first got noticed when he baffled an audience in 1995.
When we met him in Katputli, the puppeteers' colony in Delhi, he demanded some ninety thousand rupees (about £1,200) to replicate it for us - a figure which was out of our budget.
Instead we found Hasan Khan - apparently no relation - who offered to do the trick for the much more modest fee of £460.
We turned up at the scrubland near his one-roomed home to find a crowd had already gathered.
A table was set out and he warmed up his audience by making eggs disappear, as well as producing water from apparently nowhere.
A bamboo frame was then produced and Hasan announced he was going to make himself disappear inside it.
It was placed on the ground, Hasan climbed in, his head was covered and his father Anardin shook a traditional Indian musical instrument called the dumru and played the flute.
Minutes later he dropped the cloth and plunged his hands into the apparently empty bamboo frame. It would appear, no Hasan.
But this was a show like no other my colleagues or I had ever seen.
It seemed to teeter on the brink of chaos all the way through with various male assistants having to continually beat back the youthful onlookers with bamboo sticks.
Not usually a tactic known for enticing your audience to return.
Next Hasan's father produced a bunch of fruit from a basket - only to trigger an almighty scrum as the watching children dived for the pickings.
Hasan's father thwacked and hit them repeatedly. Obviously, this was one tough audience.
Finally, the Indian rope trick. From out of a wicker basket Hasan appeared to coax the rope while playing his flute.
It looked rigid enough and rose about 10ft to 12ft in the air.
Hasan and his assistants had to hold it steady as a small boy climbed his way to the summit and saluted rather proudly once there.
He did not disappear, but as soon as he was back on terra firma, the rope collapsed.
It was all rather impressive to our untrained eyes. Hasan told us: "This trick has been passed down through generations of my family.
"My grandfather learned it from his grandfather, who learned it from his grandfather."
Indeed he went even further and claimed it was his family who had created and invented the trick, which is mentioned as far back as the 17th century by the Indian emperor Jahangir.
He has a certificate from the Guinness World Records for magic and it takes pride of place in his one-roomed home.
"I can't tell you how it's done," he said.
"This is a family secret and my skill - but it's magic and some hypnotism.
"I hypnotise the crowd but I am not going to tell you how I do it."


text: I have been on a buying spree lately and now I need holsters for the new pistols. I have 2 Kahr's P380 and PM9 and will have an M&P9C on Monday if the shipping works out. I am thinking Crossbreed Micro for the 380 and Mini for the PM9 and maybe a Pure Kustom Black Ops/Spec Ops for the M&P. My problem is that I can buy Galco at dealer prices and save a ton of cash. I know I will end up with a box of holsters just like the rest of you, but I am hoping to minimize it by learning from your experiences. I like the Black Ops because it can be IWB or OWB and most rave about the Crossbreed style, but will the Micro stay put with only one clip? Help me out please.


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Dragonborn Coin
|Dec 22, 2011
|Dragonborn Coin Due to requests, I have created several versions of this coin. So far the available versions are: - Gold (Pristine, Dirty, Xtra Dirty) - Silver (Pristine, Dirty, Xtra Dirty) Base textures when installed is the Gold Dirty version Hope someone out there will enjoy this as much as I did creating it. Aside from the Dragons on the rear of the coin and the Skyrim Logo which is a simple trace then beveled in Photoshop, the coin is crafted from the ground up. No pre-made textures,...
Dovahkiin Retreat
|Feb 06, 2012
|Description: ******************* This is Dovakiin Retreat, in early beta in preparation for CK but still very usable. It is a small player owned house located near whiterun beside a waterfall/river. This house includes an exterior entrance to Dovahkiin Hideout that you can use if you have Dovahkiin Hideout installed. Download Dovahkiin Hideout: Link Features: ******************* - New Home named the Dovahkiin Retreat - Map Marker for quick access - Outdoor Storage - Outdoor Crafting Area (All...
Dovahkiin Hideout
|Mar 15, 2012
|DESCRIPTION: This adds a very large basement connecting all houses in the game. You can enter the Hideout from any house in the game by opening the hatch found on in your house. FEATURES: - Library - Armory - Bedroom - Dungeon - Mining Cave - Exterior Exit/Entrance - Map Marker - Unique NPCs, Dialogues and Quests - Door Room (Includes 5 doors to every house in the game. Mage Quaters, Jarvaskr, Ragged Flaggon.) - Two Enchanting/Alchemy Labs - Woodcutter, Smithy, Craft Bench, Smelter, Skinning...
dovahkiin blade
|Feb 18, 2012
|dovahkiin blade my first mod
DorkDiva elf eye pack
|Nov 15, 2011
|This replaces the elf eye textures with slit pupil varieties, more will be available upon release of the CK. Drop the data folder into the Skyrim directory.
Display time on loading screen
|Nov 18, 2011
|Display analog and digital clock of computer time on loading screens, you can change options (showAnalog, twelveHourClock, showLevelProgressPercentage, showHints, showLevelProgress and showTime). Installation 1. Place 'loadingmenu.swf' and 'loadingmenu_settings.txt' in [Skyrim installation folder]/Data/Interface 2. Change the settings in 'loadingmenu_settings.txt' to your liking. Uninstallation Remove 'loadingmenu.swf' and 'loadingmenu_settings.txt' from [Skyrim installation...
Detailed Lips
|Dec 29, 2011
|This mod replaces the tint masks of the lips. The originals were low resolution, blurred and suffered from compression artifacts. These new tint maps are higher resolution and much less blurry. It is recommended to use this in combination with "Detailed Faces". Although it may work with any other skin mod as well, this has not been tested. The following races, both genders, are affected: Imperial Nord Breton Redguard Dark Elf High Elf Wood Elf Orc Use the Curse client to install the mod....
Detailed Guard Shields and Banners
|Nov 29, 2011
|The textures for the city guards' shields and the hold banners have been completely remade from scratch with much higher detail. They are now 4 times as big as the original ones (1024x1024). Please take a look at the screenshots which show all the new textures. As of the current version 0.5, this mod improves the following textures: Guard Shield - Solitude Guard Shield - Pale Guard Shield - Whiterun Guard Shield - Windhelm Guard Shield - Hjaalmarch Guard Shield - Falkreath Guard Shield -...
Detailed Faces
|Dec 29, 2011
|Replaces the faces with high resolution textures. The textures are 2048x2048, the originals are 512x512. New textures have been made more detailed while keeping the style unchanged. This mod affects all characters of the following races: Imperial Nord Breton Redguard Dark Elf High Elf Wood Elf Orc Use the Curse client to install the mod. Manual installation: Use 7zip or WinRar to extract the files. Move the Data folder to your Skyrim folder. You can find the Skyrim folder here:...
Detailed Bodies
|Dec 29, 2011
|Replaces the bodies with high resolution textures. The textures are 4096x4096, the originals are 2048x2048. New textures have been made more detailed while keeping the style unchanged. This mod affects all characters of the following races: Imperial Nord Breton Redguard Dark Elf High Elf Wood Elf Orc Use the Curse client to install the mod. Manual installation: Use 7zip or WinRar to extract the files. Move the Data folder to your Skyrim folder. You can find the Skyrim folder here:...
Decorator's Assistant
|Dec 05, 2011
|Description This mod allows you to move and rotate an item without it being held, and without worrying about collisions. To use this, you must first grab an item and hold it. Once you are holding it, press the SEMICOLON key. Release the object, and you will find it floating in the air. You can then use the arrow keys to move it along the X and Y axises, and page up/down to move it along the Z axis. If you hold ALT, it will rotate the object instead of moving it. If you hold SHIFT, it will...
Death Ray Spell
|Feb 10, 2012
|Location The spell tome is located on the ground by the end of the right side of the gate bridge in Whiterun (beside the Blacksmith). ~ Video below. What it does The spell tome teaches you a modified "Sparks" spell which has just short of 1,000,000 damage. This means that it can kill literally everything that is within range. Note: The spell DOES have quite limited range, as with the Sparks spell, and cannot kill essential people (like children) unless you have a mod that makes them killable....
death blade
|Jan 13, 2012
|it is just a blade for when your stuck in a tight spot.
Crom Skills System
|Feb 24, 2012
|This Mod adds a Mining skill, that will automatically be used when you mine. It adds a prospection skill, that is automatically used when mining. What It does: For every Ore, It will check your success at mining. This depends on your skill and the type of Ore. It will then automatically add to your Mining Xps, and after some time, you will improve yourself (5 ranks, from ignorant to master right now...). You can have one of four results: Critical success: 2 Ore (and 2 times gems possibility),...
Creature & NPC Control Console Bats / AHK
|Dec 08, 2011
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Crafting Materials Recipes Bundle
|Dec 16, 2011
|Adds a number of new recipes to appropriate crafting stations to allow for more ways of obtaining certain crafting materials -Adds leather recipe for "Deer Pelt" to tanning rack -Adds additional dwemer objects to the smelting menu -Adds bone meal to the smelting menu -Adds charred skeever to the smelting menu
Craftable Pickaxe and Woodcutter's Axe
|Jan 25, 2012
|Makes Woodcutters Axe craftable. nuff said.
Craftable Lockpicks
|Nov 23, 2011
|****** Install ****** (1) Put the .esp file into your /Data/ folder in your skyrimm install location. (2) At the skyrim launcher, click on Data Files, and make sure that craftablelockpicks.esp is checked. OR open %localappdata%\Skyrim\plugins.txt and add craftablelockpicks.esp to a new line. ****** Uninstall ****** Delete craftablelockpicks.esp
CountryTaverns - AlchemyLabs
|Dec 14, 2011
|Cao Alchemy Labs in Taverns this mod adds alchemy labs to all the inns/taverns that are far from main cities. there was a time i was off wandering around and i came to Nightgate Inn, and i was let down there wasnt an alchemy lab there, it would of been great.... well now there is! the main cities have alchemy stores with labs in them, so i didnt add labs to the city inns. the following inns now have alchemy labs: Braidwood Inn (Kynesgrove) Nightgate Inn Old Hroldan Vilemyr Inn (town of...
|Jan 15, 2012
|COOL ITEMS PACKAGE 1.2 by Chachanshen 01/11/2012 WHATSTHIS Cool items package sold by Belethor. Main file includes previous items including UPDATE1 and UPDATE2. WHATSNEW 14 Unique weapons 2 Apparel Sets Fixed some minor bugs Fixed some item models not showing correctly INSTRUCTIONS Extract into you Skyrim root directory and overwrite the DATA folder. At the launcher screen, select DATA FILES. Check the COOLITEMS1_2.ESP (Uncheck other plug ins to ensure maximum compatibility). Visit BELETHOR'S...


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The University of Arizona women's basketball team has broken into the national rankings for the first time this season.
The Wildcats are ranked No. 22 in this week's Associated Press Poll and are No. 24 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. Arizona was nationally ranked all last year and finished the season ranked No. 21 in the AP Poll and No. 20 in the Coaches Poll.
Despite returning only two of last year's top eight scorers, the Wildcats have opened the 2001 season with a 12-2 overall record and swept California and then-No. 21 Stanford on the road last weekend to kick off Pac-10 play.


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On Whether He Has Any Second Thoughts About Predicting A Win Versus UCLA
"No. Our guys expect to win and they expect to win every week. I don't get caught up in that. I know what Tyler (Hansen) said and what they said in the locker room and I'm sure they say the same thing every week, each team thinks they are going to win and it is no different here. We think we are going to win this week, we thought we are going to win last week and think we are going to win in the future. It has to be a mindset that you think you are going to win every time you are out there. You have to expect that you are going to win. Every time you go out there and are competing for something. That is the first step in being able to win, believing that you can."
On If He Is Seeing Anything Particular From His Team To Think His Team Can Beat UCLA
"No, I say it every week that we are going to win. I do like how we are playing, we are playing better. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that we have continuity, our skill guys are back, our line is playing together and starting to figure some stuff out and making adjustments during the game and stuff that we might not have necessarily talked to them about - now they are communicating and getting to the point where they are doing that well. And defensively, I thought that was our best game communication wise. I've been hammering those guys to communication and over communicate, and there were four or five great examples - one, Jon Major, we had a blitz coming and he let (David) Goldberg know that he had the back if the back did a swing route. Goldberg and him made eye contact and acknowledged it and it happened and Goldberg was there to make a fortunate completion. Things like that earlier in the season weren't happening. We gave up a big play to Cal right before half because the defense didn't communicate the call. I think all of those factors are a reason why we are playing better."
On If It Is Wise To Make A Guarantee At A Press Conference
"I don't know. First off, I guarantee Taylor (Embree) said something to them about me saying that we are going to go in there and win, and he has guaranteed that they will beat us, now are we going to play any harder? It does not change how teams are going to play. Rick Neuheisel wants to beat Jon Enbree's behind in anything we do. It goes back to doing hoops when he was here as an assistant. I don't expect it to change. There is not a coach in America that goes into a game not thinking his team is going to win. Whether it is said in the locker room, whether it is said publicly, to me it doesn't change."
On If This Team Is Taking On The Character Of The Head Coach
"I do feel like it is starting to do that. I do believe as a position coach and as a player, that your players reflect you and I do see that in our team. They are having fun now. We had a timeout right before the first touchdown and Ethan Adkins told me that when they score, they are all going to get together and do this dance called the 'Bernie' from Weekend at Bernie's. I said, 'Alright, you better score,' and they did and they did their thing and they did it in a way that it wasn't an excessive celebration and got off the field. For them to come and say that to me and some of the things like that, that was how I was like as a player and as a person. I'm out there and I want to let you know what we are going to do and then I want to do it. That is just how I am. I believe in reaching success and obtaining things, you have to say it. If you want to win a championship, then you have to say, 'I expect us to win a championship,' and then you have to go and do it. I think every team that has done it and has had that success, that is what they have done. You don't just sit there and sneak up and get in after the fact. If you believe in something so strongly that you say it, then all of your actions that you do from that point forward have to be to get success in those goals."
On Other Coaches He Has Been Around That Have Been Out Front Like He Is
"Mac was like that from a certain extent. If there were cameras and microphones everywhere like there is today, you would have seen that from Mac. Rick (Neuheisel) is like that. And then I have been around individual athletes that have been like that."
On How Much Contact He Has Had With UCLA Head Coach Rick Neuheisel Over The Years
"A lot. Last time I talked to him this year was after their Cal game. We talked about Taylor coming back, that was after the suspensions and all of that, just talked about that and wished him good luck for the rest of the season."
On Rick Neuheisel Being On The Hot Seat At UCLA
"I don't really put any stock into that. Rick is a survivor, he always has been. I'm not worried about all of that stuff around that. Having been at that program for three years, there are a lot of things behind the scenes that go into some of things around there, too. I know this, Rick is going to have those guys ready to go this week and he will have those guys ready to go the next week against the Trojans. All that stuff, I don't really think about it."
On His Scouting Report Of UCLA WR Taylor Embree
"He is a physical receiver. he likes to go across the middle, he likes to work the inside of the field. Him and Nelson (Rosario), his roommate, they are good on the 50-50 balls, so if you throw it up there, they win most of those battles. He loves to block and get after you."
On If Taylor Gets Those Traits From Him
"All those traits come from his mother. His temper and all of those things, strictly from Natalyn."
On If Taylor Considered Playing At CU After He Graduated From UCLA
"No. Maybe for a fleeting moment, but from him, he came in with a lot of those guys, he, Nelson (Rosario), Tony Dye, a lot of those guys came in together and they have a really unique bond, Nate Chandler, they really do. It is a good group. I went out there for their graduation and I took a picture with all of those guys and it was funny just to see how they interact in that group picture. They really do have a special bond, it is very similar to our group here, because they have been through some things too. They haven't had the success that they have wanted to. Just seeing all of those guys together and the feeling of accomplishment when you get your degree is something special, especially with athletes. A lot of times athletes are labeled like school is secondary and they are not here to do this, but for an athlete to go and get their degree, it says a lot about them because there is so much put on their time, so many demands. A lot of times they have to do stuff when they don't feel good physically. I don't know how many students have to take a test two days after they had reconstructive surgery on something. There are a lot of things that they have to do to earn that degree. There is definitely a great sense of accomplishment when you are around all of those guys when they do that. He staying there and finishing with those guys was important."
On The Similarities Between CU and UCLA
"I look back at my times at UCLA fondly. We were part of their fifth 10-win season ever in 2005 and we had six comebacks for the ages. Every time you did one you thought you can't top it and then something crazy would happen the next week and you would find a way. It is a special place. UCLA is a unique place, it is similar to Colorado in a lot of ways from recruiting, from administration, and from different things like that."
On Why The Rose Bowl Is So Special
"I grew up always wanting to play in that bowl game. When you go, there is something about it, the turf is always perfect and you have the mountains in the background, there is something about growing up and wanting to be a part of that game. I remember EB (offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy) and I, the first game we played in there and we were like, 'I can't believe we are playing in the Rose Bowl.' That added to my disappointment when we didn't get in to play Miami in 2001. Besides the fact that that was the national championship, but then the fact that it was in the Rose Bowl, I still really haven't gotten over it. The history of it, there is just not a better bowl out there and I haven't had the chance to be a part of it, but I'm telling you, when we get that opportunity, can't wait."
On The UCLA Offense
"They run the pistol, they run the ball, they do a good job of doing a little misdirection. I think (QB) Kevin Prince is playing well running it. Last week, Utah contained him a little bit, but before that, he had done a good job of running the ball. That is kind of how they base their offense. Defensively, they are good up front, they get after you, they are physical in the back end. We have to have an effort like we had last week if we are going to win this one."
On If UCLA's Run Game Is A Concern
"Yeah because that is what they do the best. Any team you play, like last week, the pass game is what they (Arizona) did the best, you have to try and take away their strengths if you are going to have success. They (UCLA) have a good one-two punch and if you don't stop that, then you are in trouble."
On If He is More Confident With His Secondary
"Those pieces are coming together and getting guys back. Some of the issues we had back there was communication also. (Anthony) Perkins did a great job in getting guys lined up and then when we went down and we had younger guys in there, then all of sudden (Ray) Polk was done, we had some problems with that from a communication standpoint. That is significantly better now that those guys are back."
On If He Expects DB Anthony Perkins Back
"I hope he is. We'll see. At the time of the injury, he probably wasn't going to play anymore."
On WR Paul Richardson's Injury
"P-Rich, he should be cleared to go tomorrow. He got dinged a little."
On Doing The 'Dougie' Dance After A Win
"It was interesting. How that came about is that I was meeting with the seniors in the offseason about different things and just trying to get to know them. I asked each senior what they thought they did better than anyone else on the team. When I asked Speedy (Rodney Stewart), he said dance. So then I immediately said that I want you to teach Curtis Cunningham how to do the 'Dougie' and every time we win, he has to do the 'Dougie.' That is something that the guys look forward to and then other guys get up there and dance and do all that. That is something that we do that is fun and goofy."
On If He Has Lost any Confidence In PK Will Oliver
"No, I think the wind got him on the one missed extra point. I think the world of the kid and he came up in pregame and told me that he could go 70-yards going one way and I was just laughing because in my mind, we were going for it a lot anyways because of the way the wind was. I was saying to myself, 'I don't know if you will be kicking any field goals today son,' but let him go out there and do what he does. I haven't lost any confidence in Will."
On If Will Oliver Has Lost Any Confidence In Himself
"No, he seems to be good and we've done some stuff to try and make it harder on him in practice. He's been responding. He is a resilient kid."
On If TB Rodney Stewart Can Play In The NFL
"Yup, because they didn't think he could play in college. That is what he does, he proves people wrong. I think Rodney can. He would be a heck of a special teams player for us in the coverage if we had a different situation with our depth issue. He will make somebody's team, I really believe that. He is a physical pass blocker and obviously him out in space catching the ball and doing all of that. I don't know how much (New Orleans Saints running back Darren) Sproles weighs, but those are similar size type guys. So if he gets with the right team, he has a unique skill set that will allow him a chance to play on Sundays."
On Why We Haven't Seen More Big Games From WR Paul Richardson
"I think right after his big game (against Cal), he really pressed against CSU. That was some opportunities and unfortunately he had some drops. Then he got hurt and I think he is still getting his legs back underneath him and getting within the flow of things. A lot of quarterback and receiver relationship is actually getting out there and doing the timing. I think you see the timing and the rapport that Tyler (Hansen) has with 7 (Toney Clemons) now. With him and Toney because they threw all the time why he (Richardson) was out. A lot of times you ask for a guy to throw in spots and when you are doing things and if 6 is indecisive at all or people are rolling coverage in a certain way and is coming off of it quick and going to his other options. I think it is a combination of factors. I would love for him to have - as I'm sure he would - to have another breakout game this weekend against UCLA and going back home. It is not a lost skill or confidence with him, it is just getting your legs back - especially when you are talking about a knee injury with a receiver and the kind of player he is and if he is thinking about it at all. I know he will say he is, but he is not 100 percent. I think all of those factors played into it and why he hasn't followed up those games with other big games."
On Having Paul Richardson On The Field
"It keeps people off of 7 (Toney Clemons). I think it helps 5 (Rodney Stewart) run the ball. It still gives us a deep threat. The ball that Tyler threw to Toney down in the corner, what we call double-go, and if you watch that on tape, P-Rich made the corner fall down, but as a quarterback you have to go up and pre-snap look and take a side. You can't flip sides of the field. He threw it and Toney made a great catch. That showed me that he still has that explosiveness and ability to get down the field. I think after that, I think guys were getting a little softer on them, because anytime - especially if you are that DB - and that guy put a move on you and you fell down."
On What Offensive Coordinator Eric Bieniemy Has Done Better The last Few Games
"One was getting his playmakers back, that makes it easier. The other thing is just getting more comfortable up there (in the booth) and seeing things. There is always an adjustment from going from the field to the box and you see things and want to do certain things. I think it is a combination of all of those things. We really have gotten better each week in that department and everybody finding their rhythm."
On If Eric Bieniemy Had Any Reservations About Going Upstairs
"No. I think once he decided that that would be the best thing to do before Hawai'i, he has never looked back. He has never said, 'Hey, I am going to come down this week or maybe switch.' He has never blinked and I think he enjoys it up there."
On Confidence Bieniemy Has Because He Overruled Him in Rodney Stewart's Touchdown Throw
"He jokingly calls me Al Davis. What happened on that series is that I told him that I wanted to throw it deep three plays in a row, not throw it, but throw it deep three plays in a row. That was kind of the gist of the conversation. We threw it, we got down there, we were doing it and I expected us to throw and take a shot into the end zone, so I didn't even hear the play call because I was talking to Brownie (defensive coordinator Greg Brown) about something and then I clicked back over and then I saw he threw it. Probably if I would have heard it, I would have been like, 'No, let's take a shot with so-and-so.' That was a great call, set up how he wanted, it was on the proper hash, all of those different things that you need to go into some of these plays that you want to run and it was a touchdown."
On Why It Makes Him Like Al Davis
"Because Al Davis always says throw the ball deep. That is why he jokingly calls me Al Davis because I am always about trying to push the ball downfield."
On QB Connor Wood
"Connor has done a good job in running the scout team. He has done a good job of giving us a good look. We went through that stretch where five of the last six quarterbacks are high picks, a couple top ten picks and a couple of other guys that could be selected in the first round and he did a good job of giving us a good look, especially getting the ball in some tight windows, tight spaces. He has been a good teammate. I'm excited to see him and Nick (Hirschman) compete this spring and into camp to see who our quarterback will be."
On If Any Of The Redshirt Freshmen Are Turning Heads
"Stephane Nembot, he has been very physical. Austin Vincent is doing a good job down there, same with (Nelson) Spruce. Malcolm Creer was doing a great job, that is why we ended bringing him up when the injury happened. On the other side, Jermane Clark has done well. We haven't had a chance to have Sherrard Harrington to practice. Those are the guys the immediately jump out from the top of my head that has really done well for us. Most everyone else is playing."
On How Nick Kasa's Transition To Tight End
"Nick Kasa is picking it up. He is pretty natural at it. He does a good job in the run game, he can run and catch. He has done well and he is a smart kid so he has picked up the terminology and his assignments, so I'm excited. It will be good for him to have a spring to complete the transition."
On Trying To Enjoy The Moment Of Playing His Son At The Rose Bowl
"I always enjoy gameday. There are no 10 minute meetings from anybody or anything, it is just football. It is being with the players, being around them. Gameday is awesome. I'll enjoy it, trust me. All the (other) factors just heighten your enthusiasm and excitement. I enjoy every game day, I really do. The anticipation of how your team is going to play. The anticipation of certain guys stepping up and making plays play into it."
On What It Will Be Like To Try And Find Ways To Shut Down His Son On The Field
"As we get going in the game, I really don't pay attention to particular players, so I don't know how that will be. I'm on the headsets a lot conversing about certain situations coming up. I'm not really in-tuned of what is going on out there from a personnel standpoint, to me it is more situational football and trying to help the coaches with some of the things that I think might be happening or if I see a player that is out there that is struggling, getting him out and getting someone else. I'm trying to do that stuff."
On If He Will Notice His Son On The Field
"I'm sure at times, but I stand at the other end and I am trying to get a beat on things from formations and down and distance."
On If He Has Talked To Taylor This Week
"I talked to him last night, see how he was doing. Like his mom, he takes losing hard, making sure he was good; have a good week of practice and be ready to get after it. It is the same thing that I tell him every week. I'll talk to him on Friday night and I'll tell him to play fast, play physical, and go have fun. Just because it is us, you can still go have fun and play fast and play physical."
On Having P Darragh O'Neill Not Attempting Rugby Punts
"That will be something that we will handle in the offseason. Part of it is what we have to do in certain situations because of what we do in the protection. It is easy when you are in section 108 to say never do it again, but you have spent all this time, so you can't just jump into a different boat right now. That is something that we will evaluate and see what we can do to remedy that."
On Darragh O'Neill Still Having A Good Season
"Yeah, he's had a real good season. I'm not down on Darragh. It just happened, it was like slow motion too."
On The Rugby Punts Being Kicked Low
"We would like it to be executed differently. Unfortunately, we aren't able to do that sometimes. That isn't his (Darragh O'Neill's) fault, that is Jon Embree's fault. That is on me. Two more games and then we'll see if we can get that fixed."
On What He Wants To See From His Team In The Final Two Games
"I want to see them continue to play with the passion and energy and enthusiasm as they have played with the last couple of weeks. The USC game, we just couldn't consistently sustain it. I want to see them continue to play that way because that is how we have to be every game next year. I want to see them do that. I want to see those kids continue to have success and have fun. I think they are having fun. Just finish this thing right, end the streak and see if we can start a road win streak and leave behind - just like how this road losing streak has been an anchor - put that on next year's team and, 'Hey, there is a two-game road win streak that you have to uphold,' and try and build it in that manner and get kids to think that way. I talk about expecting to win, go in there and expect to win. Understanding, 'Hey, Tyler Hansen, Josh Hartigan, all of these guys left us a road win streak, let's keep it going.'"
On DE David Goldberg
"He is having a great senior year, but he also had a really good spring. I think that is one of the things when you come in as the new coach and there are no expectations, you don't know anyone, and guys go out there and get to show you what they are capable of and what they can do. He played well enough that he earned a scholarship. He has been a good playmaker for us. He does a lot of things that don't show up in the box score, like peeling on the blitz or holding edge and forcing the ball back inside to help. He does a lot of good things like that. He is playing better with his hands. He gets pressure as a pass rusher. I'm happy for him because it is important to him, it is. He has earned everything he has got, no doubt."


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Prudent Advice: Lessons for My Baby Daughter (A Life List for Every Woman) (Hardcover)
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Like Mitch Alboma's Tuesday with Morrie or Randy Pauscha's The Last Lecture, Prudent Advice is an inspiring primer of lessons, observations, and knowledge conveyed to her daughter by a very modern mother. These are the rules of contemporary wisdom rewritten for our timea the new adages to be passed from woman to woman that represent the best advice about mastering life in our complex twenty-first century era. Illustrated with four-color art throughout.
"Prudent Advice" isn't what your mother taught you--it's more. Delivering 500 mini-lessons meant to educate and entertain, Curtis writes with wit and fresh insight into motherhood wrought from her own experiences and those of her blog followers. Time-honored canons such as "Dress appropriately for work" and "You reap what you sow" mingle with more unconventional prudence such as "Talk to strangers" and "Don't be afraid to get lost." She teaches how to jump-start a battery and make summer squash with goat cheese pasta--everything a mother wants for her little girl.
Curtis emphasizes the importance of being ethical, practicing kindness, thinking for oneself, and seeing the beauty in everything and everyone, especially on the inside. This compelling guide also offers poetry, inspirational quotes, and recipes meant to embellish cultural perspective and cultivate a well-rounded, sophisticated woman. "Prudent Advice" will inspire mothers and daughters to celebrate their differences while unearthing shared core values that bond them together as family.
About the Author
Jaime Morrison Curtis is a writer, crafter, and mother. She spent her single years exercising her passport with a backpack, a notebook, and a ticket to the local art museum before settling down to start her family. A dedicated sewer, thrower of parties, and blogger, she was born and raised in Los Angeles, where she lives with her writer/skateboarder husband, daughter, and beloved dog Puck


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CLEVELAND — To quote the Little River Band: "Have you heard about the lonesome loser?" His name is Justin Masterson.
As has been the case for much of his time in the Indians' rotation, Masterson was on the losing end Monday night at Progressive Field, offering up what might have been his worst performance of the year in a 7-2 loss to the White Sox. The right-hander allowed five runs on nine hits in just four innings of work, falling to 0-5 with a 6.13 ERA on the season.
It was Masterson's 11th straight loss dating back to last season, which placed him among dubious company in Cleveland pitching lore. He joined four others — Guy Morton (13 in 1914), Rod Nichols (13, 1989-91), Steve Hargan (11, 1971-72) and Fausto Carmona (11, 2006-07) — to own losing streaks of 11 or more.
Since Masterson joined Cleveland's rotation after arriving in a trade with the Red Sox for Victor Martinez last year, he has won just once in a span of 19 starts.
"No, not really," Masterson said when asked if the losing was weighing on him. "Just not pitching as well as you'd like to, is what really gets on your mind. At times, it's been some tough luck. At times, it's them being good hitters, and other times it's just me not pitching as well as I'd like to."
On this occasion, it was the third choice, Masterson struggling with his command for the duration of his outing, especially in the opening inning, when he allowed four runs. During that fateful inning, Masterson allowed four hits, walked one and threw a wild pitch — the first of three on the night.
More photos below.
"Justin had poor command and he made us play catch-up baseball from inning one," said manager Manny Acta, whose team dropped the series opener to the Sox after snapping a season- high six-game losing skid the day before.
Masterson's hold on a rotation spot appears to be slipping away each time he takes the mound.
"We'll see," Acta said. "It's not going to be a knee-jerk reaction after the game. As of now, he's starting for us."
If the Indians choose to move Masterson into the bullpen, the prime candidate to take his spot in the rotation would appear to be Aaron Laffey, who has started sporadically for Cleveland over the past three seasons.
Or as Acta put it: "Anybody who has an Indians uniform is an option."
That would include members of the Triple-A Columbus rotation.
Masterson, who lasted just four innings for the third time this season, hasn't gotten a lot of run support — the Indians entering Monday scoring 34 runs over 15 starts during his losing skid.
That was the case again, the Indians getting the majority of their offensive production from the last two hitters in the lineup — Lou Marson and Jason Donald, who combined to account for four of their club's seven hits and one of its two RBIs.
The Indians struggled with runners in scoring position, going 1-for-12, while leaving 10 on base. Marson singled and Donald doubled to lead off the third, yet the Indians failed to score when Sox starter John Danks retired Trevor Crowe, Shin-Soo Choo and Austin Kearns in succession to end the inning.
"It's nice to see the young kids step up and perform," Acta said. "At the same time, you want it to be in a better way, winning a ballgame.
"We had an opportunity to get back in the game. I thought we had some good at-bats against Danks, but our situational hitting wasn't very good."
It was Chicago's second win in seven games against the Indians this year, Cleveland going 5-11 against the rest of the Central Division.
Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or email@example.com.


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Journal Guide
Each Small Farmer's Journal is more like a Book than a Magazine
[slideshow id=21]
CENTER CUT MOWER CONVERSIONS: In the Winter 2011 issue of SFJ Ben Jahnes had an illustrated article on how to convert horse mowers from the ubiquitous cutter-bar offset-to-the-right to one which featured a cutting action dead center. Ben came up with a way to flip the bar over and still allow proper cutting action. He has successfully done this with John Deere Big 4 and McCormick #9 mowers.
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- Hay Stackers
- Nose Bags
- Center Cut Mowers
- All-weather Stock Tanks
- Selling to Stores
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- Snow Scoop Plans
- Teaching Yourself to Auctioneer
- Jockey Sticks
- Working Horses Barefoot
- and lots more
[/wpcol_1half_end]A few of the subjects from Small Farmers Journal Winter 2011. This issue of SFJ, volume 35 Number 1, is still readily available from the SFJ Store.
Farm Drum, one instrument in what we like to think of as the orchestra Small Farmer's Journal
(For an electronic sample of the Fall 2012 edition click here)
For a slice of Farm Drum Radio click the triangle below…
"Last night it snowed eleven inches, and today the familiar has been altered. Everything is weighed down, lidded by the quiet white cloak, soft and silent. Animals wait to see if this is temporary, to see if they need to remind themselves of old useful postures and routines. Wild rabbits wait in familiar little hidey holes as do coyotes. Winter birds are backed under their covers glad for the wind to be gone, not yet worried about food. It is a pleasant time and lovely too. Twenty degrees before the sun is up, but who knows if today it will burn through the low fog thickened snow clouds?" LRM
"We've lost sight of the value of edges and margins, of reality itself, as we use the various electronic dip sticks to sample information and experience. Food cannot be grown this way. Lives must not be intertwined this way. Death, however, does become redundant." LRM
[slideshow id=22]
FRENCH HORSELOGGING: Journal friend Jean Christophe of France sent us pictures of horselogging from his country. The slide show images illustrate intriguing differences in harness design and function. Notice in the photos that the collar and hames are one piece and that the one horse is driven with a mechanical hackamore. This article appeared in the Winter 2011 SFJ.
All of the materials above, including the front cover picture, are from Volume 35 No.1, Winter 2011, of Small Farmer's Journal.
THE GREEN IN THE CORN: The old farmers I learned from would forever be taking a quiet stroll around the place, early or late, sometimes looking like they'd dropped a tool in the weeds, but mostly studying what is now and what's to come. Taking mental notes. Small, diversified farms live by such matters of timing, of attention to what's going on in the moment. Gauging the green in the corn, the moisture in the clover. Keeping a finger on the pulse, sensing what is about to happen, what the occasion will call for any minute. What is about to need planting, thinning, weeding, harvesting? How close are the ewes to lambing? What bloom are the bees working now? How soon will that green wood you split be fit to burn? They might even lift their hat, scratch their head, pull out a notepad and scribble something.- PH