Our Amazon Problem

...es while BBC’s Panorama showed the hellish conditions at the bottom of the Amazon pyramid. For years Amazon avoided paying local sales taxes, gaining a discounting advantage that put small local bookstores, unable to compete, out of business. I could go on. If you’d like to know more read this roundup of Amazon’s sins in Salon. And yet, I suspect, few of us (including myself) have had the moral courage to delete our Amazon accounts like Rob Hoskin...

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Homegrown Evolution in Chicago

...ter with: [email protected] Join Chicago’s Green Roof Growers and LA’s Homegrown Evolution for a fun class on how to make a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) out of two buckets. As a bonus, meet Homegrown Evolution blogger and author Erik Knutzen, who will be co-teaching the class and signing copies of his book The Urban Homestead. Bring some gloves and learn how to make and plant your own SIP. Leave with everything you need for a summer of fresh he...

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Homegrown Evolution Visits the Los Angeles County Fair

...mining the judging criteria of the bizarre “tablescaping” competition. Mr. Homegrown Evolution marveled at a tablescaping entry that managed to incorporate LA subway maps. Sadly, there was a lot of lame stuff at the fair as well. Los Angeles was once the wealthiest agricultural county in the United States. Now, as one local agricultural official put it to me, “we grow houses” and our county fair that reflects that fact. Out went the 4-H clubs and...

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Homegrown Evolution Podcast Episode #1

...itunes here. Download the mp3 on archive.org. On this first episode of the Homegrown Evolution podcast we talk food preservation with author Ashley English who blogs at small-measure.blogspot.com. English will have two books out next year on food preservation and chickens, part of a series entitled “Homemade Living,” (Lark Books). She also has a weekly column every Friday on Design*Sponge at www.designspongeonline.com/category/small-measures. In t...

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