The Depths People Will Go For Vanity Lawns

I've already shared my disdain for the American obsession with lawn perfection. I have infinite disdain for the use and overuse of chemicals at all cost (literally, morally, ethically and healthfully) to begin with. But when they're used to maintain that synthetic patch of blue green supposedly to impress neighbors, that only impresses me that these lawn-lusters care more about those blades of grass than the health of their family, pets and whether they're polluting their neighbor's ground water, their environment and destroying all beneficial organisms who have the misfortune of dwelling within your property line.

But now the superficiality which drives the misplaced priorities of so many ill-informed or voluntarily-deaf-on-the-subject homeowners has gone even deeper. Like hundreds or even thousands of feet deeper. Tapping into aquifers and underground streams, crashing through increasingly fragile bedrock in droves, to dig deeper wells. No. Not for drinking water. Not for human sustainability. But to water their lawns and keep their petunias and little-green-meatball-shaped landscape plants irrigated.

According to THIS ARTICLE in The Wall Street Journal, affluent McMansioners in the Middle Atlantic states are using their chump change (which can amount to 1/3 of some people's annual salaries) to dig incredibly deep private wells for private use solely to water their manicured acres and circumvent drought restrictions placed upon use of municipal water for such petty purposes. Just because you may have rights to that water under your property, doesn't mean you have the moral or ethical right to squander a precious natural resource (especially in times of drought) to maintain a few little green meatball-foundation plants, a pot of petunias or a lawn, which will just go dormant and bounce back when some rains and cooler weather return.

The fact that the continued practice of tapping into these aquifers may destroy the bedrock and surrounding ground structure; the fact that this could impact water supplies of those less well off and dependent on more shallow wells; the fact that even municipalities ultimately depend on underground water supplies; the fact that imposition of drought restrictions are increasing as more and more parts of this nation become parched; and the fact that using a precious, natural resource necessary for human viability for such (pardon the pun) 'shallow', fatuous purposes is beyond frivolous. It's shameful. In a world where water will also become as scarce and coveted as oil, it's shameful and provides yet another reasons for foreign nations to hate us.

The rich get richer and greener lawns, too. As if the later matters.

GOP VP Nomineee Or "How To Pander To Women"

When I heard the news the other afternoon announcing who McCain's 'camp' chose for his veep candidate (as I doubt it was McCain himself since he only met the woman once, and I doubt they exchange Christmas cards or anything), I nearly spit out my second cup of coffee. Now you have to understand just how important my second daily intake of caffeine is to me. So losing part of it on the kitchen table had to be elicited by some pretty heavy shit.

Rather than stomp my feet and rant and rave (which I did later), I tried to imagine the conversation that went on in the now smoke-free backrooms of McCain HQ:

"This Obama's got charisma up the wazoo, John. You've got nothing. We need to deal another hand. A whole new hand with a wild card. A gender card! Yeah, that's it, a gender card."

"We've got a pantyhose-load of disillusioned Hillary supporters about to jump the Democratic ship and are swimming toward the Red Boat in protest. So it's obvious they don't give a rat's ass about Republican policy. It's apparent they're willing to whore their Democratic principles in favor of "The Sisterhood". They've made it quite plain to the rest of the voting public that it isn't - and never was - about the issues or platform. To them it's all about shattering that damned glass ceiling of theirs. So.....let's give them a substitute to kick who can kick her spike heels through that glass roof. Just take Hillary's head off the token woman's body and plunk Palin's on there. Shoot. They'll never know the difference! We're golden, old man. After all...they're just women."

In short, the decision to pick this unknown, oil-whore from Alaska to be the person waiting in the wings should this old man kick the bucket while in office - if he's elected that is - is nothing short of pandering to the entire female population of this country and specifically, to the Hillary supporters. Are these women so blinded by the fact that their candidate is out of the Big Picture, they've given the 'talking heads',political hacks and GOP-party poopers all indications that their votes are up for grabs by anyone with a vagina?

That possible scenario would crystallize the condescending disdain many Republican pundits & "good Ole Boys" hold for the female voters specifically. If, in fact, the Hillary Clinton supporters do hitch up their skirts and abandon their mentor's party for Old Man McCain's same-o same-o republican politics of the past 8 lo-o-o-ong years to make kissy face with Palin, then it makes me sick and ashamed of my gender.

WOMEN FOR HILLARY! She lost! Get over it! Get on with the principles and issues she purported to support. Continue what she started, which wasn't a single-minded, feminist (of which I've been one for over 30 years - a feminist, not single minded that is) issue of 'getting a woman in the white house' at all costs. She advocated a woman in the white house (if not her) not just because it would be a female, but because it would be someone capable and the best candidate. Damn. I want to see a women in that Oval Office before I leave this mortal coil. You bet your vote I do. But not on pandering or "quota" terms.

This smoke and make-up mirror switcheroo of McCain is only aiming to get a pair of heels in the Veep's seat. Who's wearing them is irrelevant. if you look at her credentials, that patently obvious. Are disillusioned ,female-Hillary-supporters that desperate for the Republican's crumbs? Wake up, women! Smell the caffe latté being served up to serve up to you with those crumbs. (Make that "serve down to you".) See this condescension for what it is: a slap in the face, an "atta girl", a pinch in the butt and a rub up against you in the subway by these slithery, mealy-mouthed, lying bastards who couldn't give a rat's ass about that Glass Ceiling. Except if they could stand under it and look up your skirt.

Open your eyes! If you believed in the issues - especially those pertaining to women - that Mrs. Clinton put forth, then keep supporting those issues even if you can no longer support the former candidate. Remember, Sarah Palin - if you do your research - holds the diametric opposite of your former candidate's stand on most issues that are a priority to you..as women and as citizens. Ask yourself: Would she want you to vote for McCain simply because he's now got a woman on his ticket? Even though I didn't personally support her, I seriously doubt she would be that bitter - and downright petty or ignorant - to bite her political nose to spite her face, so to speak? Are you all 12 or something? It's your country, God dammit! It's our future. It's not a high school prom queen election.

***September 3rd Addendum to this post: I'd like to kiss the sneakers that he wears, of Jon Stewart for jumping on this with the sarcastic, yet truthful ferocity that he and his writers did last Friday night when this was announced. The piece, as "reported", by one of his on-air "reporters", Samantha Bee, was priceless, accurate to a painful fault and to give it the highest praise I can...I couldn't have written it any better myself. :)

Wally World Satire Or Truth?

I'm sure there's a lot of formerly unemployed citizens who have only been able to find employment at WalMart and rely on Wally's paycheck(?). I'm even more certain there are a lot of unemployed citizens who are unemployed BECAUSE of Walmart.

See THE BIG BOX MART VIDEO

Feds Overturn Still-President Bush's EPA Emission Control

On Tuesday, DC Circuit Court overturned restrictive policies of the EPA and the Still-Bush Administration's Clean Air Act which prevented local and state authorities from determining their own individual emission control standards for their specific locales and informing their citizenry of abusers. The American Petroleum Institute and Exxon along w/the EPA were amongst the most outstanding of those who opposed this decision. Whut a serprize!

States were seeking to formulate their own, individual higher criteria for polluting emissions than the limited, watered-down, rolled-back criteria previously mandated by the EPA and Still-President Bush.

Aw, gee, another hole blown in the ozone filled-head of Still-President Bush and his traveling environmental circus known as the alleged Agency for the Protection of our Environment as he continues till the bitter end to nuzzle Big Oil Butt.

Wait! Is that the sound of sad violins weeping in the oval office? Awwwww, gee.

Organic Hocus Pocus

Faced with alarming outcries and discoveries of tampered, illegally grown or processed and dubious "organic" products, the USDA is instituting the first steps in addressing this situation by disallowing organic approval of a number of consumer goods and additives desirous to sport the USDA/ORGANIC APPROVED seal.

China, perhaps the most recently prominent in the field of oversights and abuse of safety and purity standards in exports, poses a particularly difficult organic nut to crack since they do not allow foreign (aka: American or country of export) regional inspectors into their country to....inspect. The Catch-22 is that in order for the U.S. and other importers to assign (in this instance) organic approval, inspection of facilities, farms, factories, etc. are mandatory. A viscous cycle of uncertainty and irresponsibility.

Hopefully, this action is a step in the right direction for the woefully under-staffed and under-financed USDA. Hopefully, they're making a more concerted effort to enforce organic standards. Hopefully, this will also enable better protection of consumer's health, welfare and safety. Hopefully, the money provided by we consumers to support and fund this administration will be better spent, notwithstanding countries like China's inspection impediments. Hopefully, this indicates that the USDA is finally asking the questions echoed by American citizens especially within these past two years: How organic is organic? Are we safe?

If One Doesn't Work, Try Two, Or Three, Or...

On my "lawn kick" again. Maybe it's because 'lawn season' is in full swing. Or spiral. Downward spiral if you're a chemi-synthet-o-phile about your pwecious widdle gwass plants. Yeeuch!

I can't seem to get through a garden column, garden blog, garden forum, nursery, garden lecture....wherever gardens and all-things-horticultural are being discussed or written about, without the ubiquitous Lawn Possessed Person rising to complain about their browned out, burned out, depressingly bare-spotted and generally sickly patch of what used to be "green".

"I don't know what's the problem". they'll moan through toxic tears. " I watered every day. I fed it fifteen-gazillion times. I gave it half a bazillion treatments of fungicide/herbicide/pesticide/anycide and everycide. I applied every known Scotts et. al. lawn killer (er...lawn treament) put out by their little lab-coated snuffers of all things living in the grounds around our homes. And then I applied some more."

That's pretty much (with a little poetic license) what I'll hear or read. They water every day, too. Every day. You mean the way I see my neighbor's sprinklers ratchet on for 1/2 hour each and every morning. Rain or shine. Or the way I see oscillating sprinklers going for 30 minutes around noon or mid afternoon? Can anyone say: "Not watering long enough and yet, watering too often? " And is anyone familiar with the term: Evaporation? Gaack.

Adding insult to injury, these same overusers and abusers of synthetic fertilizers and chemicals, don't even know how to spell what they're using. I read this just this evening. A guy grabbed a bag of SevEn (that'd be SevIn folks) instead of Weed-O-No-More or Be Gone or some such other defoliant. These people can't spell what they 're using and can't differentiate one bag of poison from another. Ignorance is bliss? Ignorance is running rampant on what's left of America's lawns. Ignorance is wildly careening down the aisles past the foul, acrid stench of - primarily - Scotts chemical buffet at the nearest Big Box stores. And these people never stop to think their lawns are living things. Or at least they're trying to be. They're living things crying out to "Leave Me The Hell Alone!!! Back off from all that crap your dousing me with and give me a freaking chance to breathe and get some alive, beneficial organisms back in me to at least put me on life support before you come along with another bag of Kill-Em-Off". Geesh.

I don't think I'd want to have dinner at the home of one of these synthetic/chemical mental midgets. Boxes of rat poison could easily be mistaken for Sweet N'Low. Then again...isn't Sweet N'Low rat poison?

Lawns And The Men Who Love Them

I am more than ever convinced that the quest for the almighty perfect lawn is predominantly a male domain. Oh, I'm sure there are many females as enamored of their nice blue-green, totally-weed-free, chemically-saturated lawns. But after inculcating myself into the chemical-laden vortex of Lawndom at a major [Scotts] lawn [Scotts] chemical [Scotts] forum, I was astounded at the inordinate number of males extolling the virtues of chemically-enhanced lawns and slavishly avowing their whore-ish devotion to their chemical pimps [Scotts]. ("They poison me, man, but I know they really love me"). I'm certain that if physically possible, they would gladly have sexual relations with their sod, which might explain some of those 'gopher holes' one often sees in even in their perfect, synthetically-enhanced lawns. Hmmmm? Could be those stains in the front yard really aren't from the dog?

As high school boys compare genitalia or boorishly boast falsehoods of conquered girls, so too does that verbose, chest thumping accompany many into adulthood where comparisons of lawns and boorish boasting of weedless, bugless, and (thanks to chemicals) - lifeless - lawns still persists. After all, what respectable earthworm could live with all that accumulated salt from four-times-a-year Scotts weed, feed & bleed toxic concoctions?

The fact is that size never really matters since it's not how big your lawn, but what you do with it. That huge, perfect grass carpet, if attained with synthetic fertilizers, chemical herbicides and pesticides, is not as impressive as that slightly-dandelion-dotted, naturally-green hued grass maintained by nothing more than conscientious mowing, irrigation left to Mother Nature, compost additions or twice-yearly applications of corn gluten meal for weed control and a healthy green color. Any person - male or female - who would skew their priorities so drastically by putting the health and safety of their family and pets at risk for the sole sake of their gazillion little grass plants, is in a word: A dope. Well. Two words.

To suggest, however, that these lawn jockeys consider alternative lawn care practices, or God forbid ratchet back their instant gratification-perfectionist expectations, is tantamount to spiting on the American flag. (An analogy to which they allude quite often as in: "It's American to want a perfect lawn!") In this day and age of all manner of horrors, exploitations and terrorism, I can think of a great many other things that a true American might want, And a perfect lawn isn't one of them. Or at least, it shouldn't be.

'Talk to the hand' is an attitude I've encountered before. It's hard to penetrate a wall of thick,synthetic-mindsets. Even amongst organic gardeners, there are stoic differences of opinion and approach. But most are at least willing to listen or read or research. Why, we even occasionally delve into the dens of ChemicalLand and keep our compost-tinged ears open to chemical drivel from Scotts or Monsanto junkies if for no other reason than to remain updated on The Darkside. It helps enable a cogent, viable argument if you know what "the other side" is thinking when some macho lawn dude pontificates his chemical mantra.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder; as are priorities, and 'means' do not always justify the end. Sadly, even if the ability to comprehend alternatives is there amongst the Scott's groupies, the willingness to even consider such alternatives was long ago eradicated by copious applications of RoundUp**.

**RoundUp: A non-selective herbicide apparently capable of wiping out brain cells and common sense as well as weeds and several other once functioning, living organisms.**

USDA Ceases Researching & Reporting On Pesticides & Herbicides

Been a long time since I made an entry here, so much to say and always too little time. So I thought I kick this blog back into gear with a quote from the former Republican poster boy, Charleton "You'll have to pry this gun out of my cold, dead hands" Heston. as he pounded the beach near Lady Liberty's crowned head jutting out from the sand dune: "They've finally gone and done it!" Read all about it:HERE

Our beloved administration in its continuing environmentally-sound wisdom (Huh?) has gone and eviscerated the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), which is responsible for researching, reporting and compiling annual data on various pesticides and herbicides used in farm production. The absence of that data leaves the barn door wide open for MegaMonsanto to have (no pun) a field day w/any new toxic introductions which will wind up in our systems, our air, our earth, our water and eventually, trickle down those products for use in chemically-inclined backyard gardens.

Many groups like Greenpeace, National Research Defense Council (NRDC), the Organic Center and the WWF as well as big-buck corps like Del Monte Foods, the American Soybean Association and - yes - even Syngenta Crop Protection have signed letters to the administration pleading with them to reconsider. The irony in corps like Syngenta signing the letter is this: With no one watching the hen house of pesticides & herbicide possible toxicity, that leaves them [Syngenta, et al] open to criticism and claims by anti-chem venues which Syngenta, et al can't refute by citing stats from the NASS. Get it?

Oddly, one name was glaringly missing from the signatories on that letter: Monsanto, and it typifies to me their: I-don't-give-a-$hit attitude. "Stats? Reports? Research? Claims? Complaints? Feh. Who cares? We'll do whatever the hell we want, spray whatever the hell we want and kill whatever and whoever we want. So there!"

Anyway, Monsanto aside (which isn't easy to do or say), the fact that there will be no official research gathering and reporting on any new pesticide or herbicide out of the chemical labs and onto our crops is to say the least, rather frightening. It's the cherry on the chemical and environmental cake that has been baked, served and shoved down our throats for the last 8 years.

I can't wait to throw up in November.

I'll Have A Side Order Of Earwigs With That, Please?

Bugs in your broccoli or worms in your watercress may not be what you'd expect on your dinner plate in a chic eatery. But organically-grown produce presents a good news/bad news scenario appearing on plates in haute cuisine restaurants or treehugger bistros which pride their green selves in serving up all-organic foods. Some patrons may still prefer a pre-spritz of malathion on their greens if it means keeping their meal free of departed beetle carcasses .

Most customers, however, who are equally willing to jump on the green-wagon, are willing to over look - and eat around - any of nature's remains knowing the former creepy crawlies succumbed to either boiling cooking water, freezer temperatures or prolonged whirlpool baths of clean water ather than trace their deaths to the uses of any chemical pesticides or herbicides.

It still takes some getting used to digging into your mesculin salad and coming eye to eyes with a bug who equally enjoyed your salad in the field a few days before but never quite left his comfy home under that ruffled arugula leaf.

Ornamental Grass For Termite Control

Nothing pleases a gardener more than combining Beauty with Function. Now, research has proven what our ancestors have known for centuries about the insecticidal attributes of an ornamental grass.

Vetiver Grass has been used for centuries inside the home to repel clothes moths, cockroaches and ants as well as outdoors for tick, weevil, nematode and mole cricket prevention.

Dr. Gregg Henderson of Louisiana Agriculture Center has recently released studies which prove the grass is also a deterrent against the formidable nemesis of many southern states: the Formosan subterranean termite.

Because these termites are destructible foes in many states, those landscapes may begin to include more of these ornamental grasses, not just for their form and beauty, but for their functional abilities as well.