Extra Credit - Living Downstream

Last night, I went to Baker for the viewing of the documentary, Living Downstream. This is a book-made-movie, written by Sandra Steingraber. The documentary was described as the "connection between environmental pollution and cancer, as well as Sandra's own struggle."

Steingarber is a biologist living with the constant threat of her bladder cancer (that struck her at age 20) returning. She has been living with cancer for 30 years and, in that time, has been able to achieve a lot of recognition for her cause. Sandra's cause is simply fighting for cancer prevention just as hard as those who are diagnosed with cancer must fight for their lives.

Sandra was able to trace what she believes to be the origin of her cancer to a pesticide that many farmers upstream of her hometown have been using on their crops, atrazine. This harmful chemical not only kills weeds, but it runs-off into the river and contaminates her town's water supply, comes down with the rain and is even in the air supply. Almost every other house in her neighborhood has someone with cancer living in it. Atrazine is still used.

After the film, there was a panel discussion in which the audience was informed that there are roughly 200,000 chemicals used on a daily basis, 120 of which have received adequate safety testing. It is unbelievable.

Watch the youtube video: Ten Americans and do something.

Mind and Body (Revised)

“There is strength, freedom, sustainability, and pride in being a practiced dweller in your own surroundings, knowing what you know,” opens Gary Snyder, author of the essay Cultured or Crabbed (46). Bell Hooks in her essay, Touching the Earth, echoes the strength and sustainability that Snyder refers to in his piece and both agree that it leads to health. In her piece, Hooks quotes Wendell Berry as saying that farming/working with the land defines humans as being “not too good to work without our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone” (105). The physical and emotional well being of each individual, according to Snyder and Hooks, depends on his/her deep and rooted connection with the natural world.

“Deep Ecology thinkers insist that the natural world has value in its own right, that the health of natural systems should be our first concern, and that this best serves the interests of humans as well. They are well aware that primary people everywhere are our teachers in these values,” (Snyder 47). Primary people, in this context, refer to the indigenous peoples of the land as well as those who have spent their lives working with it and living amongst nature. These are Bell Hooks’ ancestors. These are blacks that spent most of their lives in the agrarian south during the times of slavery. Hooks explains that a love of the earth translates to a love of self and the rich soil in which she played as a child was a source of life for her (104). Snyder and Hooks agree that nature is life. Life is present throughout the natural world, thus being a part of nature is synonymous with being alive.

“Living so close to nature, black folks were able to cultivate a spirit of wonder and reverence for life,” says Hooks. “Growing food to sustain life and flowers to please the soul, they were able to make a connection with the earth that was ongoing and life-affirming,” (105). Knowing that you and nature working in unison yield food, the sustenance of human life, is a healthy outlook.
According to Snyder, there are two kinds of knowing. The first kind of knowing is found in culture, where you, your family, and your community can do real work together, and refers to the things that ground you and put you in a certain place, (46). Conversely, the other kind of knowing requires one to delve completely out of his/her actual place and revert to “straying outside” for answers, (47). This second type of knowing grants freedom and allows humans to connect with the earth that feeds our bodies and souls. The way in which humans make that connection with nature is dependent upon what they do in it.

“Culture”, as explained by Snyder, comes from the Latin word “colere” which means worship or cultivate, (47). The fact alone that humans use the word cultivate when referencing working the land to yield crops hints at its religious and spiritual undertones. Hooks describes how her black ancestors felt working on the land in a passage she includes by Onnie Lee Logan, a slave who lived her life on the farms of Alabama: “We lived a happy, comfortable life to be right outa slavery times. I didn’t know nothing else but the farm so it was happy and we was happy… We couldn’t do anything else but be happy,” (105). This all changed for blacks when they moved to the North for material well-being (to earn a living in the industrialized towns); the shift away from the agrarian life-style on the farms to the harshness of the warehouses led to a deterioration in spiritual well-being, (Hooks 106). After some time in the North spent enduring such a mind and body split, many blacks returned to the South; the return “home” in search of spiritual nourishment, a sort of healing, was deeply connected to reaffirming one’s undeniable connection to nature, (Hooks 107). Working the land, according to Berry, provides humans with a way to experience a sense of personal power and well being, (107). By being capable of creating your own food and being responsible for nurturing its growth, you are able to fully enjoy its ability to give back to you, to sustain your life.

Realizing that nature is what grants humans freedom is the backbone on which human health rests, Hooks and Snyder agree. One of the most moving lines in Snyder’s essay comes when he is talking about how nature’s release makes the human feel: “Untied. Unstuck. Crazy for awhile. It breaks taboo, it verges on transgression, it teaches humility. Going out – fasting – singing alone – talking across the species boundaries – praying – giving thanks – coming back,” (47). Snyder wants us not to “become one” with nature but to hold our similarities and differences with nature in our mind, (47). He is challenging all of us to go forth into nature and lose ourselves for awhile and then come back and feel healthy and refreshed; even more challenging is Hooks’ desire for each one of us to bring nature into our everyday lives and restore the balance of the planet but changing our relationships to nature and its resources, (107). Humans have more mobility than any other creature, it seems; we are able to move about by car, by plane, by train or by foot. Allowing oneself to venture into the wilderness and experience its growth, one can become inspired – our emotional health will, in turn, nurture our physical health.

Hooks quotes Berry again when he warns humans that only through repairing the broken connections we have with nature can humans be healed and it is in that connection that we find health. Berry goes on, “And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is.” When we lose that health, according to Berry, we create diseases and dependencies that only profit big businesses and we lose sight of the “direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving,” (107). These simple facts, simple connections, can make the world of difference, not just in the fight to sustain our planet, but in the fight to sustain ourselves. Snyder and Hooks show us just how meaningful the human relationship with nature are – we did, in fact, all come from the earth. As Hooks quotes Chief Seattle as saying in 1854: “The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man – all belong to the same family,” (105). The interwoven character of human and nature’s relationship is something Snyder and Hooks’ essays both display; the two essays differ only in their approach to said claim.

Snyder’s piece mainly reflects on one’s individual journey into the wild, he talks about leaving home to “embark on a quest,” (47). Hooks spends her essay focusing on a migration of people away from, and eventually back to, the wilderness. Her ancestors were plagued with hatred in the slave-driven South yet, their move North led to the horrible misuse of the body in factories as opposed to on farms which led to the destruction of the mind and spirit, (106). Returning to the agrarian South led to a healing of the mind and body. Both authors use effective techniques that make the problem of lost-connections with nature seem like a widespread epidemic. The only way to deal with the problem, according to both writers, is to start with yourself and your individual presence in nature.

Works Cited

Hooks, Bell. “Touching the Earth.” Saving Place. Ed. Sidney I. Dobrin. New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2005.

Snyder, Gary. “Cultured or Crabbed.” Saving Place. Ed. Sidney I. Dobrin. New York:

McGraw-Hill, 2005.

sad.

After watching Food Inc. for the second time, I'm pretty sure I am even more depressed.

The thing that hits me the hardest is how sad it is to see animals living in those conditions. It sucks that we are eating low-quality meat but having our eyes opened to how terribly the animals are grown is just as bad. There is only a small number of people that are benefiting from this terrible system and yet it continues to happen.

One thing that gives me hope is the small farmers that are trying to provide an alternative to this system. My friend has located a small farm in Northeast Ohio that raises chickens. This farm allows customers to come to their site and see how the chickens are raised; afterwards they can go to a different site and learn how to cut their own chicken. She said she has never tasted such delicious chicken and the feeling she gets knowing where her meat is coming from and how humanely the animal was raised is irreplaceable.

If only we spent more time and effort promoting such farming styles and farmers, the terribly managed system we have now could change.

As an advertising major, in a year or so I will be in the "real world" and will be able to adequately make consumers aware of their available options such as these small farms. I hope I can find a way to do such a thing.

UNpleasures of eating

Wendell Berry provides readers of his essay, The Pleasures of Eating, with some great insights.

"A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes," offers Berry (235).

However, I believe this statement to be much too generalized. For instance, I personally do not find eating certain foods pleasurable in any way if I know where it comes from. Foods like meat; if I knew which cow I was eating while I bit into a cheeseburger, I would probably throw up. I consider myself a pretty compassionate person and have considered becoming vegetarian on multiple occasions for the sole reason that I feel bad for the animals that I consume. I've never been able to do it though - I just like chicken and beef too much. If I know exactly which animal my meat comes from, it becomes too personal. I would never eat my friend and that is exactly what I would feel like I was doing.

In contrast, my dad has grown a vegetable garden for many years and the taste of a home-grown tomato is unlike anything I have ever tasted. I agree with Berry that knowing where my food is coming from makes eating it more pleasurable, IF and only if we are talking about vegetables or fruits.

Mind and Body

“There is strength, freedom, sustainability, and pride in being a practiced dweller in your own surroundings, knowing what you know,” opens Gary Snyder, author of the essay Cultured or Crabbed (46). The strength and sustainability that Snyder refers to in his piece is echoed by bell hooks in her essay, Touching the Earth; and it leads to health. In her piece, hooks quotes Wendell Berry as saying that farming/working with the land defines humans as being “not too good to work without our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone” (105). The physical and emotional well-being of each individual, according to Snyder and hooks, depends on his/her deep and rooted connection with the natural world.

“Deep Ecology thinkers insist that the natural world has value in its own right, that the health of natural systems should be our first concern, and that this best serves the interests of humans as well. They are well aware that primary people everywhere are our teachers in these values,” (Snyder 47). Primary people, in this context, refer to the indigenous peoples of the land as well as those who have spent their lives working with it and living amongst nature. These are bell hooks’ ancestors. These are blacks who spent most of their lives in the agrarian south during the times of slavery. Hooks explains that a love of the earth translates to a love of self (104) and the rich soil that she played in as a child was a source of life for her. Snyder and hooks agree that nature is life. Life is present throughout the natural world, thus being a part of nature is synonymous with being alive.

“Living so close to nature, black folks were able to cultivate a spirit of wonder and reverence for life,” says hooks. “Growing food to sustain life and flowers to please the soul, they were able to make a connection with the earth that was ongoing and life-affirming,” (105). Knowing that you and nature together yield food, the sustenance of human life, is a healthy outlook, hooks explains. According to Snyder, there are two kinds of knowing. The first kind of knowing is found in culture, where you, your family, and your community can do real work together, and refers to the things that ground you and put you in a certain place, (46). Conversely, the other kind of knowing requires one to delve completely out of his/her actual place and revert to “straying outside” for answers, (47). This second type of knowing grants freedom and allows humans to connect with the earth that feeds our bodies and souls. The way in which humans make that connection with nature is dependent upon what they do in it.

“Culture”, as explained by Snyder, comes from the Latin word “colere” which means worship or cultivate, (47). The fact alone that humans use the word cultivate when referencing working the land to yield crops, hints at its religious and spiritual undertones. Hooks describes how her black ancestors felt working on the land in a passage by Onnie Lee Logan, a slave who lived her life on the farms of Alabama: “We lived a happy, comfortable life to be right outa slavery times. I didn’t know nothing else but the farm so it was happy and we was happy… We couldn’t do anything else but be happy,” (105). This all changed for blacks when they moved to the North for material well-being (to earn a living in the industrialized towns); the shift away from the agrarian life-style on the farms to the harshness of the warehouses led to a deterioration in spiritual well-being, (106). After some time in the North spent enduring such a mind and body split, many blacks returned to the South; the return “home” in search of spiritual nourishment, a sort of healing, was deeply connected to reaffirming one’s undeniable connection to nature, (107). Working the land, according to Berry, provides humans with a way to experience a sense of personal power and well-being, (107). By being capable of creating your own food and being responsible for nurturing its growth, you are able to fully enjoy its ability to give back to you, to sustain your life.

Realizing that nature is what grants humans freedom is the backbone on which human health rests, hooks and Snyder agree. One of the most moving lines in Snyder’s essay comes when he is talking about how nature’s release makes the human feel: “Untied. Unstuck. Crazy for awhile. It breaks taboo, it verges on transgression, it teaches humility. Going out – fasting – singing alone – talking across the species boundaries – praying – giving thanks – coming back,” (47). Snyder wants us not to “become one” with nature but to hold our similarities and differences with nature in our mind, (47). He is challenging all of us to go forth into nature and lose ourselves for awhile and then come back and feel healthy and refreshed; even more challenging is hooks’ desire for each one of us to bring nature into our everyday lives and restore the balance of the planet but changing our relationships to nature and its resources, (107). Humans have more mobility than any other creature, it seems; we are able to move about by car, by plane, by train or by foot. Allowing yourself to venture into the wilderness and experience its growth, we can become inspired – our emotional health will, in turn, nurture our physical health.

Hooks quotes Berry again when he warns humans that only through repairing the broken connections we have with nature can humans be healed and it is in that connection that we find health. Berry goes on, “And what our society does its best to disguise from us is how ordinary, how commonly attainable, health is.” When we lose that health, according to Berry, we create diseases and dependencies that only profit big businesses and we lose sight of the “direct connections between living and eating, eating and working, working and loving,” (107). These simple facts, simple connections, can make the world of difference, not just in the fight to sustain our planet, but in the fight to sustain ourselves. Snyder and hooks show us just how meaningful the human relationship with nature are – we did, in fact, all come from the earth. As hooks quotes Chief Seattle as saying in 1854: “The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man – all belong to the same family,” (105). The interwoven character of human and nature’s relationship is something Snyder and hooks’ essays both display; the two essays differ only in their approach to said claim.

Snyder’s piece mainly reflects on one’s individual journey into the wild, he talks about leaving home to “embark on a quest,” (47). Hooks spends her essay focusing on a migration of people away from, and eventually back to, the wilderness. Her ancestors were plagued with hatred in the slave-driven South yet, their move North led to the horrible misuse of the body in factories as opposed to on farms which led to the destruction of the mind and spirit, (106). Returning to the agrarian South led to a healing of the mind and body. Both authors use effective techniques that make the problem of lost-connections with nature seem like a widespread epidemic. The only way to deal with the problem, according to both writers, is to start with yourself and your individual presence in nature.

disproportionate footprints

"To consume also carries the implication of waste, of destruction..."

This quote taken from Chapter 4 of Saving Place is a realization that we must all come to. Consumption is viewed as economical success but, in the realm of ecology, it can be a failure of epic proportions.

Everyday I consume food, naturally. But that food comes from a grocery store and was sent there from far away by a plane or semi-truck. That food is packaged in various materials, some of which make it to a recycle bin and some of which don't.

Everyday I use paper, I take notes which I could otherwise type on a computer. Except if I did type on a computer, I would need a lot of electricity to power my laptop because the battery can barely hold a charge.

Everyday I make enough phone calls or send enough text messages that I need to recharge my phone every night. More electricity.

I live in a fully-carpeted, heated two-story apartment. My roommates both have space heaters. More electricity.

My roommate is not comfortable unless the house is heated to 67 degrees. Besides being expensive, that seems wasteful. Indigenous people were a lot colder than that and survived and we can too.

Our culture is, if not materialistic, definitely centered around being comfortable. Maybe we want to be more than comfortable even; our culture seems to be looking for a cushy and easy life. We can be lazy and are definitely wasteful because caring takes that extra effort that few are willing to give.

Since reading the bell hooks piece, I have been seriously considering growing a vegetable garden. I think that is going to be my summer/lifetime resolution. It just seems so healthy, cost-effective, and it completely cuts out the middlemen - the grocery story, the packaging company, the semi-trucks, the garbage trucks, etc.

Ted Monroe?

On page 37 of the Ted Kerasote reading, he quotes Thoreau: "Dullness is but another name for tameness."

This quote reminds me a lot of an overused Marilyn Monroe quote: "Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."

Kerasote is talking about the "wild" and how, once everything is tamed, it becomes dull. The "wilderness" will no longer be "wild". Monroe, on the other hand, is talking about humans. Humans, once tamed and no longer ridiculous, become boring/dull.

Maybe the insight gained from both of these quotes can tell us something. Maybe it is further proving the point that humans belong in the wilderness and thus, the two, are pretty much synonymous.