094 The American Woman’s Home

October 26, 2016

On the podcast this week Kelly and I discuss a 19th century urban homesteading book written by Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home. The book was written mostly by Catherine, with some contributions from Harriet (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin). It’s likely that Catherine realized that attaching her famous sister’s name would sell more copies. Published in 1869, The American Woman’s Home covers a great deal of territory, everything from indoor air quality to houseplants, to childcare to housing the homeless. The book is in line with her family’s activism on issues such as women’s education, temperance and the abolition of slavery. We discuss many of Catherine’s specific recommendations including: butter, bread, terrariums, indoor plants, earth closets and art (she suggests everyone own a print of Eastman Johnson’s “Barefoot Boy” and Bierstadt’s “Sunset in the Yosemite Valley“).

You can read the full text of An American Woman’s Home online here.

If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme music is by Dr. Frankenstein. A downloadable version of this podcast is here.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on GMOs and the Precautionary Principle

Mr. Homegrown

September 30, 2016

Podcasts, Thoughtstylings

8 Comments

With the prospect of a Monsanto/Bayer mashup GMOs are back in the news.

In an interview from 2015, former trader and risk management expert Nassim Nicholas Taleb presents what I think are some of the best arguments against GMOs. In this podcast Taleb tackles:

The statistical errors found in scientific papers
The need to apply the precautionary principle
The unacknowledged risks of catastrophe
The technological salvation fallacy

In short, it’s not about the health risks of eating a GMO corn chip. It’s more about the way we discount and misunderstand risk. Consider Taleb’s argument the biological equivalent of what happens in The Big Short (a film in Netflix that’s well worth viewing).

You can listen to Taleb’s interview and download it here.

093 Micheal Judd on Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist

Mr. Homegrown

September 21, 2016

Gardening, Permaculture, Podcasts

2 Comments

Our guest is Michael Judd and our topic is permaculture, edible landscaping, straw bale building, mushrooms and even a permacultural approach to death. From his bio: “Michael Judd is the founder of Ecologia, edible and ecological landscape design and Project Bona Fide, an international non-profit supporting agro-ecological research.” He’s also the author of a new book, Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist. During the podcast we discuss:

What Michael learned from living in Latin America for 20 years
His circular straw bale house
Handling water through swales on contour
Dealing with homeowner’s associations
Pawpaws
Custard apples
InStove rocket stove
Cocktails
American persimmons
Mulberries and grafting mulberries
Jujubes
Growing mushrooms
Source for mushroom spawn: Field and Forest and Fungi Perfecti
A permacultural approach to death and home burial

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092 A Mattress Made of Sand

Mr. Homegrown

September 7, 2016

Domesticus, Podcasts

4 Comments

Photo courtesy of Michael Garcia

Stephanie Wing-Garcia and her husband Michael Garcia devised an innovative solution to Stephanie’s crippling back pain: they handcrafted a bed made out of sand. We visited Stephanie and Michael in their Los Angeles home and tried out their bed. Stephanie tells us the story of how, while spending a sleepless night toughing it out on a hard floor, she had a flash of inspiration. That inspiration would heal her back and lead them to start their own company: The Ultimate Earth Bed.

Our conversation also ranges over the history of how people used to sleep, from ancient Rome to the patent on the first mattress in 1850, the ecological consequences of conventional mattresses and the connection between the Earth Bed and barefoot running.

For those of you who can’t listen, we also posted about them yesterday.

Photo courtesy of The Ultimate Earth Bed

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091 Artist John Hartley’s Contingency Research

Mr. Homegrown

August 24, 2016

Podcasts

3 Comments

Our guest this week on the podcast is London-based artist and researcher John Hartley. John is probably best known for turning an office (desk, computer and business suit!) into a sea kayak. We talk about a bunch of John’s projects, including the kayak, and the intersection of art and ecological thinking. While listening to the podcast I’d suggest taking a look at John’s work which you can see on his website ambivalency.net. During the show we discuss: