CritterCam Reveals Yet More Rats and a Plea to Not Use Poison

...further the IPM cause. At the time, and to some extent to this day, there’s a lot of incentive to sell poisons. IPM offers a balanced, common sense approach to dealing with critters like rats: observe, reduce habitat for the creatures we don’t want and increase habitat for predators, use barriers, use biological controls and use toxins as a very last resort. Our own health and the health our planet demands a less toxic approach to pest management...

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Asphaltum as a Wood Stain

...en there, this park consists of a paleontology museum dedicated to ancient creatures that got stuck in the tar as well as a fenced off and stinky pond with a tarry waterline and occasional methane bubbles. The large expanse of grass surrounding the pit was sparsely populated on the weekday we visited. In the distance I could see the ongoing demolition of the LA County Museum of Art. As I said goodbye to the high 60s modernist art museum cafeteria...

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Of Gnomes and Peak Oil

...task to command gnomes, The earth is filled by gnomes even to its center, creatures of diminutive size, guardians of mines, treasures and precious stones. They furnish the Children of the Sages with all the money they desire, and ask little for their services but the distinction of being commanded. [Source: Arthur Edward Waite, Real History of the Rosicrucians] Apologies to Paracelsus for the comparison–he is a much better read than Frum. And, ju...

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Midnight in the Desert

...hole: the power to restore life to deceased animals, birth mysterious seal creatures from within the carcass of lambs and produce impossible objects such as 1943 Roosevelt dimes. During a commercial break on Water’s first appearance on Coast to Coast, listeners started searching the area around Ellensberg on an early internet satellite service called Terraserver. Mysteriously, Water’s property seemed to have been blacked out. Bell later claimed to...

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Anima: Animals, Faith, Compassion

...ts meat or not is just part of the issue. Right relationship to our fellow creatures is what is important. Home gardeners, chicken keepers and permaculturalists well know the difference between stewardship and dominion, the difference between working with as opposed to our culture’s mad control freakery. A personal note. I had, in the past few months, fallen off my ethical eating wagon and taken to occasionally consuming what I knew to be factory...

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