Best sustainable ways to work abroad

Are you just out of high school or college? Retired? Care about the environment and want your travels to make a difference? Want to polish your resume in the meantime?

Working on sustainable projects is a great way to make this dream a reality. You have the opportunity to see the world in a meaningful way, as well as contributing to the local environment. There are a variety of options to choose from – just find the one that suits you best, and go for it!

Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF)

WWOOF hosts offer volunteers food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles. WWOOF organizations link people who want to volunteer on organic farms or smallholdings with people who are looking for volunteer help. Visit the WWOOF website to search for your perfect farm work stay.

Lotan Kibbutz in Israel has opportunities for volunteers to learn about organic agriculture, permaculture and sustainable living as well.

Try an internship

Sound simple? Interning is often the easiest way to earn your keep and travel too. Look for causes and organizations you believe in. Jump-start your search at Idealist.

Eco-resort jobs

Gardening, cooking, building tree houses, the experience of working on an eco-resort requires one to be a jack-of-all trades. The Black Sheep Inn in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador takes volunteers, as does Saba Ecolodge on Saba Island in the Caribbean. Search for opportunities around the world on the Eco Tropical Resorts website.

Environmental education camps

Love kids? Environmental education camps offer myriad opportunities to work and travel. Look at summercamps.com for international placements.

Become a research assistant

Visit university job sites such as Texas A & M University to find local and international opportunities. Also try looking into field research stations, some take volunteers and will provide room and board. It may even lead to a career change!

Work with wildlife

There are many opportunities throughout the world to work in as a wildlife rehabilitator. Greece, Bulgaria, Finland, and Venezuela are a few countries with many organizations. The International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council and Green Volunteers are good places to start. Wildlife tracking is lesser known as an option but just as rewarding.

Park work

National and international opportunities abound. In the USA try CoolWorks or The Student Conservation Association.

There are so many options to choose from, there’s sure to be one that will allow you to follow your dream. Whether you end up working as a teacher, researcher or rehabilitator, follow your passion and you can’t go wrong.

Happily produced by The Indie Travel Podcast, proud winners of Lonely Planet's "Best Podcast 2009" -- Check out our free podcast in iTunes.

Best sustainable ways to work abroad

The Big Hate

Op-Ed Columnist
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: June 11, 2009

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.

It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.

Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox’s Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn’t change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”

And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.

The great deficit scare returns

Even liberals are getting antsy about debt and government spending. Stop worrying. The deficit hawks are wrong.

By Robert Reich

June 11, 2009

It's the kind of thing I expect to hear from deficit hawks and chicken littles -- from the self-described "fiscally responsible" right, from the scolds Ross Perot and Pete Peterson, from my former cabinet colleague Bob Rubin. But yesterday I was shown slides developed by the putatively liberal Center for American Progress intended to make the point. And today's front page story in the New York Times, by the eminent David Leonhardt, entitled "Sea of Red Ink: How It Spread From A Puddle," puts the issue right before our progressive noses, so to speak.

The Great Debt Scare is back.

Odd that it would return right now, when the economy is still mired in the worst depression since the Great one. After all, consumers are still deep in debt and incapable of buying. Unemployment continues to soar. Businesses still are not purchasing or investing, for lack of customers. Exports are still dead, because much of the global economy continues to shrink. So the purchaser of last resort -- the government -- has to create larger deficits if the economy is to get anywhere near full capacity, and start to grow again.

Odder still that the Debt Scare returns at the precise moment that bills are emerging from Congress on universal health care, which, by almost everyone's reckoning, will not increase the long-term debt one bit because universal health care has to be paid for in the budget. In fact, universal health care will reduce the deficit and cumulative debt -- especially if it includes a public option capable of negotiating lower costs from drug makers, doctors, and insurers, and thereby reducing the future costs of Medicare and Medicaid.

Even odder that the Debt Scare rears its frightening head just as the President's stimulus is moving into high gear with more spending on infrastructure. Every expert who has looked closely at the nation's crumbling infrastructure knows how badly it suffers from decades of deferred maintenance -- bridges collapsing, water pipes bursting, sewers backed up, highways impassable, public transit in disrepair. The stimulus, along with the President's long-term budget, also focus on the nation's schools, as well as America's capacity to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. These public investments are as important to the nation's future as are private investments.

First, some background: Deficit and debt numbers mean nothing in and of themselves. They take on meaning only in relation to something else. And the most important something else, in terms of deciding whether the nation can afford such deficits or debts, is the size of the national economy.

Pay close attention, in particular, to the debt/GDP ratio. True, that ratio is heading in the wrong direction right now. It may reach 70 percent by the end of 2010. That's high, but it's not high compared to the 120 percent it was in 1946, after the ravages of Depression and war.

Over time, the basic way America has reduced the debt/GDP ratio is by growing the U.S. economy. GDP growth makes even large debts manageable. When the economy is cooking, more people have jobs and better wages. So they pay more taxes. And they require less unemployment assistance and other social insurance. That's why it's so important now, in the depths of depression, that government, as purchaser of last resort, steps in and runs large deficits. Without large deficits this year and next, and perhaps the year after, the economy doesn't have a prayer of getting back on a growth path, and the debt/GDP ratio could really get ugly.

That growth path, by the way, will be faster and stronger if the nation invests in our infrastructure, our schools, and our environment -- which is exactly what Obama aims to do. In this respect, national budgets are like family budgets. It's dumb for an indebted family to borrow more money to take a world cruise. But it's smart even for an indebted family to borrow money to send their kids to college. So too with the Obama budget. Public investments, just like family investments, build future wealth. They allow faster growth. They make the debt/GDP ratio even lower and more manageable over time.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about when it comes to long-term deficit and debt projections. I'm just saying now's not the time to worry, and we ought to temper our worries by understanding the larger context.

Not every expert agrees that a deficit-driven stimulus is the best and fastest way to get the economy back on a growth track, or that public investments can speed growth. Conservative economists, Republicans, and many Wall Streeters are skeptical because they don't think government can do anything well. But look at the record of the last seventy-five years -- look at how the nation got out of the Great Depression, and consider the critical role public investments have played since then in speeding the nation's growth, investments such as the interstate highway system -- and you have ample evidence that the deficit hawks are wrong. They were wrong when they convinced Bill Clinton to chuck a large part of his investment agenda (the nation is now paying the price) and they're wrong now.

So, back to the mystery. Why are the ostensibly liberal Center for American Progress and New York Times participating in the Debt Scare right now? Is it possible that among the President's top economic advisors and top ranking members the Fed are people who agree more with conservative Republicans and Wall Streeters on this issue than with the President? Is it conceivable that they are quietly encouraging the Debt Scare even in traditionally liberal precincts, in order to reduce support in the Democratic base for what Obama wants to accomplish? Hmmm.

Baker’s Ghost in Cairo

Op-Ed Columnist

By ROGER COHEN

Published: June 3, 2009

NEW YORK — I hope President Obama has been reading James Baker in preparation for his speech Thursday to the Muslim world. It was in the time of the former secretary of state, two decades ago, that the United States last had a balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here’s what Baker told the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee — the pro-Israel lobby — on May 22, 1989: “For Israel, now is the time to lay aside, once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel.”

He continued: “Israeli interests in the West Bank and Gaza, security and otherwise, can be accommodated in a settlement based on Resolution 242. Forswear annexation; stop settlement activity.”

Those words make startling but depressing reading: Little has changed in 20 years. After Bush 41 and Baker, we got Clinton’s love affair with Yitzhak Rabin (“I had come to love him as I had rarely loved another man”); the disintegration of Oslo after Rabin’s tragic assassination; and the Israel-can-do-no-wrong policy of Bush 43.

Balance — the credential no honest broker can forsake — vanished from American diplomacy.

I don’t believe that’s been good for Israel. The Jewish state needs to be challenged by its inseparable ally if it is to achieve the security it craves.

Obama is speaking on a significant date. June 4 is the day before the outbreak of the 1967 war that led to the 42-year occupation of the West Bank. U.N. Resolution 242, invoked by Baker, called for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” It has, with the exception of Gaza, been ignored.

The president must talk about the cost to Israel — and to U.S. standing in the Middle East — of the occupation and expanding settlements. Campfire Kumbaya about his part-Muslim family and schooling in Muslim Indonesia is not going to win over disaffected Arabs focused on dwindling Palestine. He must be honest to Israel and unafraid to address the issue of justice for Palestinians.

I said little has changed in two decades. But some things have. The wall-fence has gone up, putting some 10 percent of West Bank land on the Israeli side of the barrier. The Israeli settler population of the West Bank has more than tripled to some 300,000. A network of garrison-like settlements, roadblocks and settler-only highways has built Palestinian humiliation into the very fabric of what Baker called “Greater Israel.”

Adam Bittlingmayer, a Google software engineer recently in the West Bank, sent this personal (and not corporate) view to me on his return: “I think the most important word to repeat is ‘humiliation.’ Palestinians can be successful software engineers, they can have an espresso in a café and blog on their MacBooks, but they cannot hide from their children that they are powerless in the face of an Israeli teenager holding a gun who may or may not be in a good mood.”

There have been other changes since 1989. The United States has formally embraced a two-state solution just as that solution was looking more vulnerable to demography and Palestinian disillusionment.

The Palestinian movement has fractured and Hamas has emerged as a powerful force within it. Political Islam has grown as a core expression of Muslim anger and identity. Jihadist terrorism has coalesced at its violent fringe.

Arab states, through a 2002 peace plan, have offered recognition to Israel within its 1967 borders, and that plan has received the support of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, whose members include Iran.

Not least, heroic Israel has teetered, in the eyes of many, toward bellicose, bullying Israel, whose two most recent wars have been inconclusive at best.

Place those developments on a scale and I don’t see a stronger Israel. The status quo is in fact never static. Obama, as a friend of Israel, must find ways to say that the occupation deadlock cannot be in the Jewish state’s interest.

The Muslims between the Mediterranean and Jordan River will soon outnumber the Jews. At that point, to remain a Jewish state, Israel must become a non-democratic state. Palestinian statehood — alongside Israel’s — has become essential to Herzl’s dream.

By using language not seen since Baker on halting the settlements, the Obama administration has started to hold Israel accountable.

Obama must of course do the same with Arabs and Palestinians. Again, Baker is a good guide: “Let the Arab world take concrete steps toward accommodation with Israel, not in place of the peace process, but as a catalyst to it.” Or: “Translate the dialogue of violence in the intifada into a dialogue of politics and diplomacy. Violence will not work.”

Abba Eban, the former Israeli foreign minister, once called the 1967 borders “the Auschwitz borders.” But Eretz Israel is a dead end; and the cultivation of traumatized memory offers Israel no path to 21st-century peace. The reconciliation Obama seeks with the Muslim world, and Israel’s reconciliation with itself, must be anchored, with mutually agreed adjustments, in the geography of June 4, 1967.

The president’s June 4 speech will fail if it does not make that clear.

Gene Robinson's Invocation at the Inauguration's Opening Ceremony

Advocate.com
January 21, 2009

Following is the text of the invocation given by Bishop V. Gene Robinson at the opening ceremonies of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration Sunday, January 18. Robinson delivered the prayer at the base of the Lincoln Memorial while facing a crowd nearly a million people strong that filled a stretch of the National Mall all the way to the base of the Washington Monument.

Good afternoon,

Before this celebration begins, please join me in pausing for a moment to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

Oh God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears -- tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die a day from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger -- anger at discrimination at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants; women; people of color; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort at the easy simplistic answers we prefer to hear from our politicians instead of the truth about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon and the understanding that our next president is a human being, not a messiah. Bless us with humility, open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences.

Bless us with compassion and generosity, remembering that every religion’s god judges us by the ways we care for the most vulnerable. And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of the president of the United States. Give him wisdom beyond his years, inspire him with President Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for all people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our ship of state needs a steady, calm captain. Give him stirring words; we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership there will be neither red nor blue states but a United States. Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him strength to find family time and privacy and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods. And please God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents and we’re asking far too much of this one; we implore you, oh good and great God to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand that he might do the work that we have called him to do. That he might find joy in this impossible calling and that, in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace.

Amen.

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PRIDE MONTH, 2009

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________

For Immediate Release June 1, 2009

LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PRIDE MONTH, 2009


BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Forty years ago, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New
York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for
members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)
community. Out of this resistance, the LGBT rights movement in America
was born. During LGBT Pride Month, we commemorate the events of June
1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.

LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting
contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American
society. There are many well-respected LGBT leaders in all professional
fields, including the arts and business communities. LGBT Americans
also mobilized the Nation to respond to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic
and have played a vital role in broadening this country's response to
the HIV pandemic.

Due in no small part to the determination and dedication of the LGBT
rights movement, more LGBT Americans are living their lives openly
today than ever before. I am proud to be the first President to appoint
openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100
days of an Administration. These individuals embody the best qualities
we seek in public servants, and across my Administration -- in both the
White House and the Federal agencies -- openly LGBT employees are doing
their jobs with distinction and professionalism.

The LGBT rights movement has achieved great progress, but there is more
work to be done. LGBT youth should feel safe to learn without the fear
of harassment, and LGBT families and seniors should be allowed to live
their lives with dignity and respect.

My Administration has partnered with the LGBT community to advance a
wide range of initiatives. At the international level, I have joined
efforts at the United Nations to decriminalize homosexuality around the
world. Here at home, I continue to support measures to bring the full
spectrum of equal rights to LGBT Americans. These measures include
enhancing hate crimes laws, supporting civil unions and Federal rights
for LGBT couples, outlawing discrimination in the workplace, ensuring
adoption rights, and ending the existing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy
in a way that strengthens our Armed Forces and our national security.
We must also commit ourselves to fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic by both
reducing the number of HIV infections and providing care and support
services to people living with HIV/AIDS across the United States.

These issues affect not only the LGBT community, but also our entire
Nation. As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled,
all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the
principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will
benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the
Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal
rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of
America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution
and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of
the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere
it exists.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of June,
in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of
the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

BARACK OBAMA

Reagan Did It

Op-Ed Columnist

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: May 31, 2009

“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. ... All in all, I think we hit the jackpot.” So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act.

He was, as it happened, wrong about solving the problems of the thrifts. On the contrary, the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe. But he was right about the legislation’s significance. And as for that jackpot — well, it finally came more than 25 years later, in the form of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

For the more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years.

Attacks on Reaganomics usually focus on rising inequality and fiscal irresponsibility. Indeed, Reagan ushered in an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence.

On the latter point: traditionally, the U.S. government ran significant budget deficits only in times of war or economic emergency. Federal debt as a percentage of G.D.P. fell steadily from the end of World War II until 1980. But indebtedness began rising under Reagan; it fell again in the Clinton years, but resumed its rise under the Bush administration, leaving us ill prepared for the emergency now upon us.

The increase in public debt was, however, dwarfed by the rise in private debt, made possible by financial deregulation. The change in America’s financial rules was Reagan’s biggest legacy. And it’s the gift that keeps on taking.

The immediate effect of Garn-St. Germain, as I said, was to turn the thrifts from a problem into a catastrophe. The S.& L. crisis has been written out of the Reagan hagiography, but the fact is that deregulation in effect gave the industry — whose deposits were federally insured — a license to gamble with taxpayers’ money, at best, or simply to loot it, at worst. By the time the government closed the books on the affair, taxpayers had lost $130 billion, back when that was a lot of money.

But there was also a longer-term effect. Reagan-era legislative changes essentially ended New Deal restrictions on mortgage lending — restrictions that, in particular, limited the ability of families to buy homes without putting a significant amount of money down.

These restrictions were put in place in the 1930s by political leaders who had just experienced a terrible financial crisis, and were trying to prevent another. But by 1980 the memory of the Depression had faded. Government, declared Reagan, is the problem, not the solution; the magic of the marketplace must be set free. And so the precautionary rules were scrapped.

Together with looser lending standards for other kinds of consumer credit, this led to a radical change in American behavior.

We weren’t always a nation of big debts and low savings: in the 1970s Americans saved almost 10 percent of their income, slightly more than in the 1960s. It was only after the Reagan deregulation that thrift gradually disappeared from the American way of life, culminating in the near-zero savings rate that prevailed on the eve of the great crisis. Household debt was only 60 percent of income when Reagan took office, about the same as it was during the Kennedy administration. By 2007 it was up to 119 percent.

All this, we were assured, was a good thing: sure, Americans were piling up debt, and they weren’t putting aside any of their income, but their finances looked fine once you took into account the rising values of their houses and their stock portfolios. Oops.

Now, the proximate causes of today’s economic crisis lie in events that took place long after Reagan left office — in the global savings glut created by surpluses in China and elsewhere, and in the giant housing bubble that savings glut helped inflate.

But it was the explosion of debt over the previous quarter-century that made the U.S. economy so vulnerable. Overstretched borrowers were bound to start defaulting in large numbers once the housing bubble burst and unemployment began to rise.

These defaults in turn wreaked havoc with a financial system that — also mainly thanks to Reagan-era deregulation — took on too much risk with too little capital.

There’s plenty of blame to go around these days. But the prime villains behind the mess we’re in were Reagan and his circle of advisers — men who forgot the lessons of America’s last great financial crisis, and condemned the rest of us to repeat it.

Goodbye, GM

by Michael Moore

June 1, 2009

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh -- and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over. It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another 97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Preserving Time in a Bottle (or a Jar)

Evan Sung for The New York Times

SAVOR LATER Eugenia Bone preserves asparagus.

By JULIA MOSKIN

Published: May 26, 2009

FOR Eugenia Bone, opening the kitchen cupboard in her SoHo apartment is like dipping into a favorite TV show. “The jars are like characters, with story lines that I remember,” she said recently, scrabbling around in search of a jar of yellowfin tuna preserved in olive oil and salt. “Seeing them brings back the farm where I bought that case of artichokes, or the day we picked all those cherries.”

Canning, Step by Step

Some Canning Dos and Don'ts (May 27, 2009)

Recipe: Sun-Cooked Strawberry Preserves (May 27, 2009)

Recipe: Pickled Asparagus (May 27, 2009)

When the tuna came to light, the date on the label was discouraging: 2006. “The Feds wouldn’t like it,” she said, referring to Department of Agriculture recommendations that home-preserved food be eaten within a year. “But it’s still going to make a great lunch.”

Ms. Bone, who has just published a canning cookbook titled “Well-Preserved” (Clarkson Potter), is not the blue-ribbon farm wife usually brought to mind by the phrase “home preserving expert.” She spent her youth in a plastic miniskirt, smoking and running between punk music shows on the Lower East Side. Now 50, a typically jumpy New Yorker and the mother of two teenagers, she grows nothing, though she is a regular hunter-gatherer at farmers’ markets.

But with her finely developed palate — she is a daughter of the influential Italian-American cookbook author Edward Giobbi — Ms. Bone has joined a growing movement of home cooks who are interested in preserving flavor, not just food.

“When I was young, we were just trying to desperately hold on to things,” said Edon Waycott, whose “Preserving the Taste” (Hearst Books, 1996) is one of the group’s bibles. She makes preserves from the mulberries, guavas and boysenberries she grows at home in Malibu, Calif., and was raised on working farms in North Carolina and New Jersey. “Now everything is available all the time, but capturing the ripeness and deliciousness of a strawberry is harder than it was back then,” she said.

Preserving food cannot be considered new and trendy, no matter how vigorously it’s rubbed with organic rosemary sprigs. But the recent revival of attention to it fits neatly into the modern renaissance of handcrafted food, heirloom agriculture, and using food in its season. Like baking bread or making a slow-cooked tomato sauce, preserving offers primal satisfactions and practical results. And in today’s swirl of food issues (local, seasonal, organic, industrial), home preserving can also be viewed as a quasi-political act. “Preserving is an extension of the values that made you shop in the farmers’ market in the first place,” Ms. Bone said.

“There’s an incredible surge of interest recently,” according to June Taylor of Berkeley, Calif., a pioneer in using local, seasonal produce and as few added ingredients as possible in her expensive, delicious fruit preserves. “People want to take back their food and their skills from the industrial giants.”

People are also looking for thrifty, crafty ways to eat well. In a time of high food prices, job losses and food safety scares, home canning is booming, with sales of equipment already up almost 50 percent over last year, according to the Jarden company, which makes both Ball and Kerr canning supplies.

Stacks of locally grown, peak-ripe produce are about to appear at farmstands and markets — then disappear for another year. The time window is opening for pickling artichokes, simmering berries and suspending plums in time, and syrup.

On Sunday, about 80 people are expected at a community kitchen in San Francisco’s Mission District, to preserve 500 pounds of ripe apricots trucked in from local organic farms. “The morning team will macerate them in sugar, cardamom and vanilla and the afternoon team will process them,” said Anya Fernald, who conceived the project and publicized it on Facebook and on www.yeswecanfood.com.

Shares in the apricots (future canning parties will tackle cucumbers in July and tomatoes in September) have been sold online, with a discount for those who show up to work in the kitchen. “By joining C.S.A.s or shopping at farmers’ markets, people have made the commitment,” Ms. Fernald said, referring to community-supported agriculture programs, in which people buy a weekly share of a farm’s output. “Now they will learn to deal with the ingredients.”

Canning, especially the friendly sounding “small batch” model, reduces the seasonal bounty to a series of manageable afternoon projects. (By contrast, older recipes call for bushels, rather than quarts, of produce.) “It’s not a huge annual event, but all of a piece with the way I eat and cook every day,” said Georgianne Mora, who lives in South Londonderry, Vt., and blogs at www.acookinglife.typepad.com. “The most flavor, from the best ingredients, with the least interference from me.” Ms. Mora, a purist among purists, has experimented extensively with jams cooked almost entirely by the heat of the sun, and sells them at farmers’ markets.

Like most ideologically tinged movements, preserving has its warring factions, its fault lines and its taboos. Many American home-canning classics — the kinds that win prizes at county fairs, like peas and carrots, dilled green beans, fruit jellies stiffened with pectin — are considered too sweet, too plain or too artificial by these cooks.

“I have never made one jar of jam with pectin,” declared June Taylor, referring to the naturally derived thickener that is a staple of both industrial and home canning. (It is called for in many recipes on the Agriculture Department’s canning Web site, the National Center for Home Food Preservation, www.uga.edu/nchfp/, considered the most reliable resource.)

Pectin is present in most unripe fruits and many ripe ones, but Ms. Taylor, Ms. Mora and others consider the prepackaged stuff, available in liquid and powder form, unnatural. Some produce their own pectin as cooks did for centuries, by boiling down the juice of green apples. This is the method espoused by Christine Ferber, the French jam goddess whose tiny workshop at the eastern edge of Alsace is hallowed ground for lovers of fruit preserves. (Her jams are sold at Pierre Hermé’s pastry shops in Paris, and her book, “Mes Confitures,” begins with a recipe for green apple jelly.)

Even the pectin rebels generally follow the U.S.D.A.’s strict guidelines for canning procedures, which have become even stricter over the last two decades. “After the 1970s there was a real crackdown,” said Blake Slemmer, a lifelong canner and self-described “homesteader” in Atlanta who translates the detailed U.S.D.A. instructions into plainer language on his Web site, www.pickyourown.org.

“In the 1980’s there was a hard look at the science,” said Dr. Elizabeth Andress, director of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, who has worked with the U.S.D.A. for 25 years on developing the guidelines. “Canning is much safer and more reliable than when we began.” Current regulations forbid the simple open-kettle canning, in which hot food is spooned into hot jars, sealed, and left to cool. Now virtually all food must be processed after it goes into the jar, and cooks are firmly discouraged from canning vegetables other than tomatoes. (The high acidity of most ripe fruits helps discourage spoilers; most vegetables have no such natural protection.)

But experienced canners say that the warnings unnecessarily discourage novices. “You should be clean, but you shouldn’t be paranoid,” Ms. Mora said. “Imagine the conditions in which these techniques were developed.”

Although the science of preserving doesn’t change, tastes, economies and ideologies do.

Community canneries, where local farmers and cooks could once bring their produce to be canned, or do it themselves using large-scale equipment, have mostly disappeared. But in the Hudson Valley, a group in Schoharie County recently received a grant to help open a new one. Peter Pehrson, who is leading the project, said he was inspired and alarmed by the wasted produce on local farms that are geared for the commercial food market.

“The tradition here is for the community to come in and pick up the gleanings,” he said. “I couldn’t believe how much was left lying in the field.” Mr. Pehrson said he was raised on farms and knew that even basic preserving equipment could solve the problem and create a new resource: locally grown canned vegetables.

“Like most home cooks and gardeners, I overbuy, I overplant, and then the moment of reckoning comes,” he said.

Buying too much at the farmers’ market is the main reason Ms. Bone learned to can a decade ago. She loved good food, especially Italian food, and the preserving recipes that other canners used to win ribbons at county fairs just didn’t have the deep, complicated tastes she remembered from her father’s kitchen and visits to his family in Italy. Out of necessity, she began to develop her own safe recipes for canned foods she found useful, like pickled cauliflower and marinated artichokes.

“How much jam and dill pickles can a person get through?” Ms. Bone asked. Her book includes master recipes — for preserves like stewed onions with marjoram, lemony baby artichokes, and figs in brandy — and recipes for dishes that use them up. She is all about the churn of the kitchen, the movement of ingredients from the counter to the cupboard and freezer, back to the counter, to the table, and out. “It’s all part of the kitchen eco-system,” she said. “It all gets used in the end.”

She stepped away from a stovetop of boiling pots to arrange herself in a yoga pose. “In full peacock your elbows really dig into your stomach,” she said, balancing on her forearms. “Cooks like it because it keeps things moving through the intestinal tract.”

She doesn’t decorate her jars with calico, or stick charming labels on them, and is unconcerned about the color of her asparagus and the occasional overcooked batch of artichoke hearts.

“I’m not in it for the looks,” she said. “If it tastes good, I’ll eat it. If it doesn’t taste good, I’ll make it taste good.”

What I would tell myself if I could go back in time...

This is a wonderful topic. I would tell my

11 year old self - don't end that friendship, you're going to need her support through middle school and high school

12 year old self - start using tampons now!

16 year old self - television will only rob you of the time you have to live your life (I just learned this...) ; Also, buy an electric razor  now!

21 year old self - even though it might not feel like it now, you're just as smart as everybody else; plus, don't forget to send Thank you cards.

23 year old self - your boss is a jerk, and you don't have to believe what he says

26 year old self - you can do it! and you'll be amazing

30 year old self - you'll make it through this job change

32 year old self - you are beautiful and have got it together! Be kind to yourself and keep focus.

35 year old self -  don't change your dose, ride with things as they are!

Some quotes I liked

If you'll regret it in the morning, sleep 'til noon. JesL. PostSecret

It’s better to be pissed-off than pissed-on.

Do it scared, but do it! Anonymous

Let somebody love you. Susie PostSecret

Remember link for songs: http://jiwa.fm/playlist/Strong-independent-women-329686.html

http://jiwa.fm/#playlist/329686

When ‘Local’ Makes It Big

By KIM SEVERSON

Published: May 12, 2009

WHEN Jessica Prentice, a food writer in the San Francisco Bay area, invented the term “locavore,” she didn’t have Lay’s potato chips in mind.

But never mind. On Tuesday, five potato farmers rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.

Five different ads will highlight farmers who grow some of the two billion pounds of starchy chipping potatoes the Frito-Lay company uses each year. One is Steve Singleton, who tends 800 acres in Hastings, Fla.

“We grow potatoes in Florida, and Lays makes potato chips in Florida,” he says in the ad. “It’s a pretty good fit.”

Mr. Singleton’s ad and the other four will be shown only in the farmer’s home state. A national spot featuring all five potato farmers begins next week.

Frito-Lay is one of several big companies that, along with some large-scale farming concerns, are embracing a broad interpretation of what eating locally means. This mission creep has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate. But food executives who measure marketing budgets in the millions say they are mining the concept because consumers care more than ever about where their food comes from.

“Local for us has two appeals,” said Aurora Gonzalez, director of public relations for Frito-Lay North America, which is owned by PepsiCo. “We are interested in quality and quickness because we want consumers to get the freshest product possible, but we have a fairly significant sustainability program, and local is part of that. We want to do business more efficiently, but do it in a more environmentally conscious way.”

The original “eat local” movement, an amalgam of food and environmental politics, came of age a decade or so before the term locavore was coined in 2005.

To a certain set of believers, supporting locally grown food is part of a broad philosophical viewpoint that eschews large farming operations, the heavy use of chemicals and certain agricultural practices, like raising animals in large, confined areas.

“The local foods movement is about an ethic of food that values reviving small scale, ecological, place-based, and relationship-based food systems,” Ms. Prentice said. “Large corporations peddling junk food are the exact opposite of what this is about.”

But people on the other side of the argument say the widening view of what it means to eat locally is similar to the changes the term organic went through as it grew from a countercultural ideal in the 1960s and 1970s to an industry with nearly $25 billion in sales last year. A related debate about how to define sustainable farming is now gathering force in government, agriculture and business.

Concerns over food safety, quality and cost are driving people beyond hard-core locavores to seek out food that has traveled fewer miles and has a traceable provenance, said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for the food conglomerate ConAgra.

The company recently began a marketing campaign to highlight its Hunt’s canned tomatoes, most of which are grown within 120 miles of its Oakdale, Calif., processing plant.

Of course, the tomatoes would be local only to people in the area. But if the company can show consumers its tomatoes are grown near the plant that processes them, shoppers who want to know where their food comes from might be more apt to buy them.

“The problem is there is absolutely no way we can have local produce within 100 miles of every person in America, so the question is how do we take it to that next level,” said Phil Lempert, a grocery industry analyst known as the Supermarket Guru who ConAgra recently hired to work on its Hunt’s tomatoes promotion.

Other companies are embracing the term “local” in their own ways. Foster Farms, a $1 billion company that is the largest producer of poultry products on the West Coast, markets its fresh chicken and turkey as “locally grown” because it contracts with hundreds of local growers in the states where it operates.

Some producers are stretching local to mean locale, emphasizing the geographic origin of their food. Dairy products from California, oranges from Florida and almost anything made in Vermont are getting special attention from marketers. Kraft is trying to figure out whether people in Wisconsin will buy more pickles if they know the cucumbers that go into a jar of Claussen’s are grown there.

“The ingenuity of the food manufacturers and marketers never ceases to amaze me,” said Michael Pollan, the author of “In Defense of Food” and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine. “They can turn any critique into a new way to sell food. You’ve got to hand it to them.”

Some people marketing their big-scale food on a small-scale level understand that. They say they’re not pretending to be something they are not.

“This is celebrating the notion of community,” said Dave Skena, vice president for potato-chip marketing of Frito-Lay. “We don’t use the term ‘locally grown’ because that’s a personal issue for so many people.”

Large farms usually given over to commodity crops are also having a local moment, driven in large part by economics.

In central California, the Sacramento County Farm Bureau recently started a “Grow and Buy Local” initiative with a $50,000 grant from the county.

Part of the money is being used to encourage 3,000 area farmers whose fields are filled with feed grain, safflower and other commodity crops to plant acres of grocery store crops like strawberries or artichokes, or to hold some fruit, like pears, back from the canner.

That fresh produce can then be marketed as local and sold to nearby institutions like hospitals and jails that want to buy food raised nearby. And some of it can fill farm stands, which helps satisfy consumers who want to buy local fruits and vegetables and don’t care as much about, say, farm size or organic practices, said Charlotte Mitchell, the executive director of the county farm bureau and a Foster Farms turkey rancher.

“We have to continue to feed the world, but we need to make people aware that going to that local strawberry stand is so important, too,” she said.

For some big agricultural interests, promoting local food has a protectionist bent. Sales of Virginia apples were hurt a few years ago when Chinese apples flooded the market, said Martha Moore, director of governmental relations for the 38,000-member Virginia Farm Bureau.

Those kinds of threats from imported food is one reason her agency started a local food marketing program last year.

“If promoting local agriculture will help America to become food independent, that’s what we want,” she said.

She doesn’t buy into all the values many local food advocates hold dear, like cage-free eggs; limited use of herbicides, fertilizers and other chemicals; and small farms.

“We don’t think the argument should be about the size of the farm,” she said. “It should be, ‘Do you know the farmer and where is the farmer from?’ You can have good and bad actors in any size farm.”

For hard-core locavores, watching the food industry adopt their language is frustrating. But it also means things are changing.

“You know the locavore phenomenon is having an impact when the corporations begin co-opting it,” Ms. Prentice said. “Everyone should know where things are processed. The ‘where’ question is really important.”

Freeze That Thought

The New York Times

By MARK BITTMAN
Published: May 5, 2009

IF I tried to sell you a new appliance that could help you save money, reduce food waste and get meals on the table faster, the only thing you’d ask would be “How much?”


The answer is “Nothing.” You already own it. For just as the stove comes with a hidden and often overlooked bonus — the broiler — so does the refrigerator: the freezer. Why not use it?

I know: you do. In that messy box you have some ice cubes, some stuff you bought frozen — a pizza? Lean Gourmet? peas? — and maybe, if you cook a lot, some stock or hastily stored leftovers. You also have a load of things you’ve already forgotten about and will eventually toss, even though you would have been guilt-struck if you had discarded them when they were fresh.

But if you conscientiously use the freezer in two ways, you’ll value it as never before. The first: take raw ingredients you have too much of — or whose life you simply wish to prolong — and freeze them. The second: take things you’ve already cooked — basics like stock, beans, grains and the like, or fully cooked dishes — and freeze them.

To the extent that you do both of these tasks regularly, and keep your freezer organized, you’ll make your cooking cheaper, more efficient and faster.

If you’re nodding your head because so much of this is self-evident, go take a look. I thought I knew what I was doing, too, until I examined a piece of frozen meat that could have been that bit of lamb shoulder I bought three months ago or the beef chuck from two weeks ago. And, no, I couldn’t visually distinguish between a single frozen egg white and a bit of freezer-burned lemon juice, both in identical containers.

I know I’m not alone: the freezer of nearly everyone I visit is a mess. It’s easy enough to throw things in there, but a little more difficult to exercise the forethought that real efficiency requires.

In terms of reducing waste, the most important step you can take is to freeze things the moment you realize you’re not going to cook them in time. If you get a last-minute dinner invitation, you might freeze that fish you bought; if you take the kids strawberry picking, get the excess in there as quickly as you can; if you have a superharvest of vegetables (or a good score at the farmer’s market), blanch them and freeze them.

After all, few foods improve in the refrigerator. They don’t improve in your freezer, either, but they degrade more slowly, especially if you keep the temperature at 0 degrees or below. Check it with a thermometer, and re-check every few months. Note that full freezers are more efficient than half-full ones, a further inducement to freeze more.

While you’re freezing, remember that your enemy is freezer burn, a freeze-drying on surfaces exposed to air that imparts unpleasant flavors and dry, fibrous textures. To help maintain quality, avoid freezer burn by double- or even triple-wrapping food, filling containers to the top and squeezing the air out of containers (zippered bags are good for this). Some foods and sauces, like pesto, can be stored with a layer of oil on top. Others, like cooked beans, can be topped off with water or cooking liquid, leaving room for expansion. And remember: the idea of freezing is to prolong the life of food that you’re going to eat, not to postpone discarding it. Use what you freeze, within weeks if possible, but certainly before the next harvest rolls around. This isn’t so much a question of safety — frozen food will rarely go “bad” — but of quality. Freezing is not, after all, suspended animation.

One more thing, easy to overlook and impossible to overrate: Label. It is incredible how much things grow to resemble another in the freezer. Use a permanent marker, write exactly what it is (“fish” or “stew” isn’t as helpful as “monkfish” or “lamb/veg stew”), and date it.

Some more suggestions and tips for using your freezer wisely, in very rough order of usefulness. (And see, or make, further suggestions on my blog, Bitten, at nytimes.com/bitten.)

STORAGE

In addition to produce and meats, there are some less obvious ingredients whose life can be extended by freezing. Most of them can be used straight from the freezer: Fresh noodles; flours or meals; grains; nuts (which taste kind of good frozen); whole coffee beans (supposedly not as good after you freeze them, but most of us can’t tell the difference); banana leaves (nice for plating or wrapping, but they come in huge packages); and more, detailed below.

LEFTOVERS

Make extra of any dish, with leftovers in mind, then freeze in smaller portions that can be taken to work, sent to school or reheated for a solitary dinner. Freeze in individual containers, topping up with water, cooking liquid or oil to prevent freezer burn, or freeze in sturdy zippered bags, then squeeze out as much air as possible. Defrost in the fridge, in cold water, or in a microwave, or not at all — many items can be reheated straight from frozen. (Yes, I’m talking about homemade TV dinners.)


BEANS AND GRAINS

I’m tempted to say that you should never cook beans or grains without making more than you need. Freezing them (covered with water or cooking liquid, leaving room for expansion) works that well, and saves loads of time.

STOCK

For home cooks, the biggest problem with stock is having it around when you need it. So make as much as you can manage — three gallons, say. To save space, you can reduce the stock so that it’s extra concentrated, and reconstitute it with water to taste when you’re ready. Refrigerate and skim the fat, if you like, then freeze in containers of varying sizes, or in ice cube trays.

STOCK-MAKING MATERIAL

Scraps of poultry (most of the chicken parts we don’t eat are good for stock), meat (again, especially the less-used, bonier parts) or fish (heads and skeletons in particular), vegetable trimmings, bones and more. Keep separate bags for each, adding to them when you can. Remember, though, that stock is not garbage soup: Carrot and potato peels, cabbage cores, and the like can be used, but in moderation. Animal organs are best avoided (fish gills and guts must be removed, and offal in general makes bitter stock).

BREAD, BREAD DOUGH, BREAD CRUMBS

Freeze dough in well-wrapped balls; defrost until it regains springiness. (It will never rise quite as high as unfrozen dough, but it works nearly perfectly for pizza or focaccia, and well enough for other uses.) Good crusty bread, wrapped in aluminum foil, can turn lighter dishes into meals — just defrost in the foil at 350 degrees or so for 10 minutes, then crisp up, unwrapped, at slightly higher temperatures. (I’m talking about crusty bread; sliced bread can be defrosted on the counter or in a toaster.) And stale bread can be made into crumbs in a blender or food processor, stored in a container, and added to at will.

PASTRY AND PASTRY DOUGH

Most cake and cookies freeze pretty well, carefully wrapped. Or make a frozen log of “refrigerator” cookies to slice and bake later. Same with biscuits: make a whole batch or double batch of biscuit batter, bake just enough for dinner, and freeze the rest.

TOMATOES AND TOMATO SAUCE

Tomato sauce is best frozen in zippered bags with the air squeezed out. If you have ripe tomatoes, core, quarter, and throw them in a bag; as they thaw the skins will slip off, a bonus. (The frozen chunks separate easily so you can just break off a couple for soups, stews, salsas, sauces and so on.) You can also freeze unused portions of canned tomatoes, preferably in their juice.

BACON

Or pancetta, prosciutto, smoked ham hocks, prosciutto bones, etc. Wrap tightly in plastic and cut off pieces as you need them. (Or cut before freezing — you might need a butcher to do this in the case of big bones.)

FRESH HERBS

If you have extra herbs, your four best options are: Make pesto by puréeing the herb with oil and whatever other seasonings you like; make “pesto,” a purée of herb and water, with or without other seasonings; make compound butter; chop herbs, and freeze in ice cube trays covered with water.

FISH

When I’m in a good fish market I buy too much and later wonder what I was thinking. Fortunately, squid, shrimp and the meat of lobster, clams and mussels all freeze well. Even fillets, steaks, and cleaned whole fish — wrapped carefully in plastic — will keep most of their quality in the freezer for a couple of weeks, and there’s no reason they should spend any longer there. Another note: If you’re buying fish that has been frozen to begin with, ask for still-frozen rather than thawed fish, then store it in the freezer or thaw in the refrigerator.

FRUIT

Easier than making jam: Freeze berries or stone-fruit halves spread out on trays, then bag or put into containers, so they don’t all freeze together in a block. Or cook down a bit and store in their juice. Or purée and freeze.

VEGETABLES

If you find yourself with too much corn, greens, carrots, peas or snow peas, broccoli, cauliflower, string beans, put them up. Blanch them for a minute before spreading them on a tray, the same way you freeze fruit. Tomatoes (as noted above) and bell peppers are the exception; they freeze well raw.

BANANAS

When my kids were young these were a staple. Peel and individually wrap overripe bananas in plastic; freeze. Use within a few weeks for banana bread or smoothies.

TORTILLAS

Wrap two corn tortillas at a time in wax paper, then in a plastic bag; freeze flat. When you’re ready, stick the wax paper packages right into the microwave for a minute to warm. The same technique works well for cooked waffles and pancakes. Where do you think General Mills got the idea?

EGG WHITES

If you make a lot of ice cream, custard, or other recipes that call for a lot of egg yolks, you will have extra whites. Freeze them in batches of two or three for making meringues, macaroons or angel food cake.

Parmesan rinds

Most cheese freezes well, but there’s not much reason to do it. Parmesan rinds, however, add a great deal to risotto and soups (and can be eaten; they’re delightfully chewy and a little rubbery). Freeze them in zippered bags.

CHICKEN OR DUCK LIVERS, FAT, ETC.

As noted above, they don’t make good stock, but they have other uses. Three livers or so and a small handful of fat makes a nice little batch of chopped liver, for example.

WINE

That last quarter of a bottle? Freeze it, then use it for cooking wine as needed. See stock for best methods.

CITRUS

If you have a surplus of citrus — perhaps someone sent you a case of oranges from Florida or you found lemons for a dollar a pound and went overboard — squeeze them. The juice freezes fairly well. Lemons, limes and oranges also can be frozen whole. When a recipe calls for juice, defrost what you need in the microwave.

BURRITOS

It’s a bit of a project, but you can mass-produce breakfast or other burritos, wrap them individually (first in wax paper, then in plastic), and microwave in a couple of minutes.

The Long Voyage Home

Op-Ed Columnist


By DAVID BROOKS
Published: May 4, 2009

Republicans generally like Westerns. They generally admire John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave. They like leaders — from Goldwater to Reagan to Bush to Palin — who play up their Western heritage. Republicans like the way Westerns seem to celebrate their core themes — freedom, individualism, opportunity and moral clarity.
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But the greatest of all Western directors, John Ford, actually used Westerns to tell a different story. Ford’s movies didn’t really celebrate the rugged individual. They celebrated civic order.

For example, in Ford’s 1946 movie, “My Darling Clementine,” Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp, the marshal who tamed Tombstone. But the movie isn’t really about the gunfight and the lone bravery of a heroic man. It’s about how decent people build a town. Much of the movie is about how the townsfolk put up a church, hire a teacher, enjoy Shakespeare, get a surgeon and work to improve their manners.

The movie, in other words, is really about religion, education, science, culture, etiquette and rule of law — the pillars of community. In Ford’s movie, as in real life, the story of Western settlement is the story of community-building. Instead of celebrating untrammeled freedom and the lone pioneer, Ford’s movies dwell affectionately on the social customs that Americans cherish — the gatherings at the local barbershop and the church social, the gossip with the cop and the bartender and the hotel clerk.

Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order.

They would begin every day by reminding themselves of the concrete ways people build orderly neighborhoods, and how those neighborhoods bind a nation. They would ask: What threatens Americans’ efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids? The answers would produce an agenda: the disruption caused by a boom and bust economy; the fragility of the American family; the explosion of public and private debt; the wild swings in energy costs; the fraying of the health care system; the segmentation of society and the way the ladders of social mobility seem to be dissolving.

But the Republican Party has mis-learned that history. The party sometimes seems cut off from the concrete relationships of neighborhood life. Republicans are so much the party of individualism and freedom these days that they are no longer the party of community and order. This puts them out of touch with the young, who are exceptionally community-oriented. It gives them nothing to say to the lower middle class, who fear that capitalism has gone haywire. It gives them little to say to the upper middle class, who are interested in the environment and other common concerns.

The Republicans talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life. They celebrate capitalism, which is a means, and are inarticulate about the good life, which is the end. They take things like tax cuts, which are tactics that are good in some circumstances, and elevate them to holy principle, to be pursued in all circumstances.

The emphasis on freedom and individual choice may work in the sparsely populated parts of the country. People there naturally want to do whatever they want on their own land. But it doesn’t work in the densely populated parts of the country: the cities and suburbs where Republicans are getting slaughtered. People in these areas understand that their lives are profoundly influenced by other people’s individual choices. People there are used to worrying about the health of the communal order.

In these places, Democrats have been able to establish themselves as the safe and orderly party. President Obama has made responsibility his core theme and has emerged as a calm, reassuring presence (even as he runs up the debt and intervenes rashly in sector after sector).

If the Republicans are going to rebound, they will have to re-establish themselves as the party of civic order. First, they will have to stylistically decontaminate their brand. That means they will have to find a leader who is calm, prudent, reassuring and reasonable.

Then they will have to explain that there are two theories of civic order. There is the liberal theory, in which teams of experts draw up plans to engineer order wherever problems arise. And there is the more conservative vision in which government sets certain rules, but mostly empowers the complex web of institutions in which the market is embedded.

Both of these visions are now contained within the Democratic Party. The Republicans know they need to change but seem almost imprisoned by old themes that no longer resonate. The answer is to be found in devotion to community and order, and in the bonds that built the nation.

Still Singing

Editorial: Appreciations


By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Published: May 4, 2009

I saw Pete Seeger Sunday night, alive as you and me. They threw a birthday concert for him at Madison Square Garden. John Seeger, age 95, said from the stage that he expected his 90-year-old younger brother to make 100, which seems reasonable. Standing there, banjo off his shoulder, head thrown back, Pete looked eternal, in that pose so engraved in American memory it should be on a coin.

More than 40 artists, including John Mellencamp, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen, joined in a stage-clogging sing-along. When its four-plus hours are edited down to highlights, from “This Land Is Your Land” to “Goodnight, Irene,” it will be a PBS special made in pledge-week heaven.

I wonder, though, how many of the angry moments will survive.

Will we hear the Native American musicians pleading for support in their battle with Peabody Energy? Peabody is a giant strip-mining company that has been at the center of lawsuits by Southwestern tribes over drinking water and income from mineral rights.

Will we hear the praise for the Clean Water Act of 1972, or the acid remark from one of the Indians: “Ever since that man by the name of Hudson went up that river, it’s gone to hell.”

The evening was, after all, a benefit for Clearwater, the name of an organization and a boat, both built by Mr. Seeger, that have fought for decades to rescue the Hudson River from life as an industrial sewer. The job isn’t done. Remember PCBs? General Electric dumped tons of them in the river. The company is about ready to dredge them out, but for now they are still there, seeping downriver and into fish.

That’s one hot issue. But issues and leftist anger were mostly confined to the first half of the evening. Under a sweet, heavy nostalgia glaze, the show summoned but never lingered on bygone days when folk singing was considered both relevant and dangerous.

Mr. Seeger has walked the walk for so long that he has outwalked most everybody who would ever want to beat him up, throw bricks at him or denounce him as a Red.

He’s “outlasted the bastards,” Bruce Springsteen said. But others will outlast him, and it will be up to a new generation to write and sing songs to fight power with truth. Will they? Or will they close their eyes and sway to “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,” forgetting the part of folk singing that was never sweet for its own sake?

“Behind Pete’s somewhat benign, grandfatherly facade,” Mr. Springsteen said, lies a “nasty optimism,” a great way to describe the steel-willed Seeger method, the geniality that others mistake for softness.

Mr. Seeger is “a stealth dagger through the heart of our country’s illusions about itself,” Mr. Springsteen said, getting it exactly right.