Could the swine flu be linked to industrial agriculture practices, say keeping thousands of immunosuppressed pigs in tight quarters and then carelessly discharging their effluent? A private biosurveillance tracking firm, Veretect has a timeline of the epidemic originating in the town of La Gloria in the State of Veracruz.

“Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.”

More on this story at Grist and Peak Oil Entrepreneur.

At this point we’re in the wild speculation phase of the swine flu narrative and I’ll add that the press does a particularly bad job with anything that has to do with science. However, we’ve been trying to make the point that distributed agriculture, more people tending small numbers of animals, is most likely a safer practice than large factory farms. The exotic strains of E-coli and swine flu that have emerged in recent years could be the unintended consequence of concentrated animal feeding operations. Time to call the homeowners association and ask them if you can keep a few pigs in that suburban backyard.

Architects Arakawa and Madeline Gins have the radical idea that our addiction to comfort and safety is killing us. Their solution: designing houses and apartments where no surface is even, with awkward and even dangerous passages between rooms, where buying your own furniture is impossible. Living in their buildings forces the occupant to think about each and every step.They promise eternal life (an exaggeration for the sake of making a point) and a return to youthfulness.

“At least one tenant says he feels a little younger already. Nobutaka Yamaoka, who moved in with his wife and two children about two years ago, says he has lost more than 20 pounds and no longer suffers from hay fever, though he isn’t sure whether it was cured by the loft.” [wsj.com]

Having encountered Arakawa and Madeline Gins work several years ago, I’ve been haunted by the crazy idea that we should immediately get rid of all of our normal furniture for the sake of our future heath. Having done a lot of running and far too little stretching, Mr. Homegrown Evolution’s middle-aged body has gotten increasingly stiff. Mrs. Homegrown describes me as having the flexibility of a “ginger bread man.” And yet I see our 70+ year-old Chinese neighbors doing all their garden work while nimbly crouched low to the ground, in a posture I doubt most native born Westerners half their age could mimic. Their health and flexibility is, no doubt, due in part to cultural and architectural differences. Switching out our Western furniture for a down-on-the-floor type arrangement would force me to incorporate stretching as a part of my daily routine rather than separating it out as an activity (like yoga) that I never seem to get around to doing.

Arakawa and Madeline Gins heretical ideas are all about the unseen and unintended consequences of convenience. It reminds me of using a bicycle for transportation–it may be more dangerous and often takes more time than driving–but think about the benefits to both body and mental sharpness (dodging all those SUVs). How about running without shoes? I’m convinced that the arch support in the shoes I’ve worn all my life has weakened the muscles in my feet and led directly to a painful case of plantar fasciitis that took a year and a half to heal. How about running barefoot as an alternative? How about keeping bees as nature intended as the Backwards Beekeepers do while we’re at it? In fact all of these heretical notions, counter to conventional wisdom, could be grouped under the “backwards” banner.

I could go on, but don’t worry. We still like clothes . . .

See more pictures of Arakawa and Madeline Gins innovative work here.

And a video:

Sadly, according to a poorly written article in the Wall Street Journal, the couple seems to have been caught up in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme forcing them to close their Manhattan office.

We’re not the types to obsess about carbon footprints, preferring a separate set of fun, pleasure and cheapness metrics with which to base our lives on. That being said, Mr. Homegrown Evolution punched in our stats for a contest over at Low Impact Living and ended up winning the contest. Read the article about us here.

There’s some irony about this, in that Mr. Homegrown Evolution is, as you read this, busting the household carbon footprint on an unexpected CLUI related business trip to a remote Swedish mining town in the arctic.

Arctic journeys aside, the way we won the Low Impact contest is simple. We live in a small house and don’t drive much. That’s just about it. We can’t afford solar panels, and everything else we’ve done, such as the washing machine greywater system, is DIY and un-permitted. We’re sure that many people in our 1920s era neighborhood would have also won this contest. Folks in apartments would have done even better. The average African would do a thousand times better.

But anyways, many thanks to the nice folks at Low Impact Living and we’ll be using that hotel stay on our next book tour of San Francisco (travel via Amtrak and bicycle, for those keeping score).