Image by ambienttraffic via FlickrUrban Agriculture
Guest Post by Stesha Parrish

Urban agriculture defined in simple terms is the growing, processing, and distribution of food and other products through intensive plant cultivation and animal husbandry in and around cities. (North American Urban Agriculture Committee.) It includes green belts around cities, farming at the urban fringe, vegetable plots in community gardens, and food production in thousands of vacant inner-city lots. Urban agriculture comprises fish farms, farm animals at public housing sites, municipal compost facilities, schoolyard greenhouses and gardens, restaurant-supported salad gardens, backyard orchards, rooftop gardens and beehives, window box gardens, and so much more.

There is a growing consumer demand for fresh, local, and often organic food which in turn creates new markets for urban food production. Many of these efforts specifically address the needs of urban residents who are living in poverty, and consequently experience poor nutrition, hunger, and anxiety about not having enough to eat. The potential for food production in cities is great, and dozens of model projects are demonstrating successfully that urban agriculture is both necessary and viable.

Approximately 80 percent of the United States population lives in urban areas and this is projected to continue to grow. This is an amazing contrast when compared to 100-years ago when 50 percent of Americans lived on subsistence farms or in small rural towns where communities fed themselves with locally grown foods. More food is now shipped from markets outside the United States to feed our citizens than at any other time in history. (Community Food Security Coalition) Food typically travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to table, with as much as 25 percent traveling farther than food did in 1980. This distance traveled accounts for nearly 50% of food which is lost to spoilage. (Community Food Security Coalition) This in turn makes most fruit and vegetable varieties chosen to be sold in supermarkets based on their ability to withstand industrial harvesting and extended travel and not for their nutritional quality or taste.

It has been suggested that every community should be able to produce at least a third of the food required by its citizens at any given time in order to prepare for emergencies. At present, less than five percent is being produced. (Mann) If there was a natural disaster resulting in a loss of production within a particular area that held large-scale producers, then our nations food supply would be severely disrupted, resulting in many going hungry. Our food supply became very vulnerable and unpredictable when it left our family farms.

Paradox In The Land Of Plenty

One of the worst paradoxes in agricultural history is due to the current food system structure which results in hunger amongst the plenty of food produced. Thirty-three million people live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. Food insecurity in the United States is represented by people who frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for the entire day. There is an increasing number of Americans who are experiencing food insecurity. (Community Food Security Coalition) As the economy continues to decline and uncertainty grows, so will our food security.

With most of our food traveling such great distances and being produced off of a petroleum based production system, food costs will continue to rise making nutritious, affordable food less available to those already in need. Already many inner-city grocery stores charge higher prices for basic food items and the quality of food is lacking in small neighborhood stores. (Fisher, 1999) This seems to be unproductive in assisting those who need help with those more likely to be on tighter fixed incomes being forced to pay more for their food than their wealthier counterparts.

Food insecurity, in whatever form it may come, affects the quality of life for urban residents in many different ways. Inadequate nutrition and food insecurity can have many adverse effects on an individual and community including more health care costs, sickness, disease, fatigue, higher emotional stress, and increased crime rates within the area affected. Urban agriculture offers aid to those experiencing this. More food security results in more physical and mental health of a community and also less crime and city services that are required within that community.

Urban agriculture can help revitalize a community with beauty and give its citizens a sense of pride and togetherness that it may have been previously lacking. Vacant and abandoned lots litter inner city neighborhoods with run down buildings and overgrown forgotten places that often attract crime. These neighborhood eye-sores can easily become a positive gathering place that brings community members together and benefits all involved. Many cities are transforming these types of lots into community green spaces and community food gardens that create a sense of unity and provide nutrition for those who surround it.

Cities are finding uses for other unused areas as well. Some schools are and hospitals are starting orchards and food gardens where once only turf grass or ornamental plantings where found. The food produced from these are being used to feed the students, patients, being used as a source of education, therapy, and given back to the community. Portions of city parks are being turned into edible and visual delight landscaping. Food is being produced in utility right of ways and many roof tops have been converted into productive spaces for growing food. There are many organizations being formed to promote and encourage cities to make this transition such as New York City’s “Earth Pledge.”

Urban agriculture offers residents local, healthful, accessible, and affordable food in a sustainable and realistic manner. It also offers entrepreneurial opportunities to those who previously thought they had no other option. There is a growing demand for local healthy food across the nation and many are finding a niche within that market. Many times the elderly and refugees have a wealth of knowledge about growing and preserving food that can be utilized in creating income and nutrition for their families.

Making The Difference

Many community and inner-city gardeners combine their produce to sell to restaurants or at farmers markets. Community supported agriculture (CSA) is on the rise and help keep these urban farmers afloat between growing seasons. Food From the ‘Hood (FFTH) was the nation’s first student managed natural food products company that is based out of inner Los Angeles. It has managed to award over $140,000 in scholarships to students and supported itself since 1992. (FFTH) Intensive gardening methods are used in cities to produce yields up to thirteen times greater per acre than their rural counterpart. This utilization of space creates great potential for profit and food security within a particular area and is available to anyone who chooses to attempt it.

Many cities have successfully transitioned into a secure food supply system by using urban agricultural practices. The oil embargo of 1973 forced Cuba start producing its own food and utilize all resources available to feed the nations population. Cuba successfully managed to prevent the starvation of a multitude of inner city inhabitants by people banding together and growing food in even the smallest of areas available. Havana currently still produces one-half of the vegetables consumed by its citizens within the cities farms and gardens. (Cuba Survived)

Singapore has 10,000 urban farmers who produce eighty percent of poultry and twenty-five percent of the vegetables consumed. (Smit, 1996) Fourteen percent of London’s residents grow food gardens providing eighteen percent of their nutritional needs (Garnett, 1999) and forty-four percent of Vancouver’s residents do the same (City Farmer). U.S. counties adjacent to or within metropolitan areas grow seventy-nine percent of the fruit, sixty-eight percent of the vegetables, and fifty-two percent of the dairy products produced in the United States. (Heimlich, 1993) However, few dollars generated by these farms actually remain in the area that produces them. Small urban farmers have the potential to not only provide food security to their communities, but also economic stability with locally owned and operated business keeping money moving within a community.

Urban agriculture offers a variety of ways to help feed a community through schoolyard greenhouses and gardens, restaurant-supported salad gardens, backyard orchards, rooftop gardens and beehives, window box gardens, and many more techniques. These are affordable, realistic, and offers healthy, nutritious, affordable, and accessible food to a community that previously may not of had this option.

Urban Agriculture can stimulate a local economy by offering local organic produce that is already in demand, creating jobs where there once were none and keeping money circulating within the community. Urban agriculture offers a solution to they run down vacant lots scattered throughout cities across America, and turns them into a peaceful social gathering place that unites communities and neighborhoods alike. It can provide food security to families and communities across the nation that once did not have access or could not afford nutritious food for their families. Communities are capable of producing at least half of their dietary needs through roof top gardens, and other alternative areas with intensive growing techniques that offer high yield crops.

It is possible with documented cases such as the major cities of Havana, Cuba, Moscow, Russia, London, England, Vancouver, Canada, and Singapore’s residents all producing a good portion of their food within the city limits themselves. If we learn from these examples and put into practice basic backyard or window box gardening we could eventually end up becoming less dependant on tasteless food that has traveled thousands of miles with inadequate nutrition that took money out of the area it was grown.

This entire concept is un-American and we, as a Nation, need to wake up and remember how important our food is. Teaching our neighbors and our children how to grow their food and increasing the knowledge of where it all comes from will increase the overall health of our nation’s residents and peace of mind.

References

Fisher, A. 1999. Hot Peppers and Parking Lot Peaches : Evaluating Farmer’s Markets in Low-Income Communities. Retrieved November 25, 2008 from http://www.foodsecurity.org/HotPeppersPeaches.pdf

Mann, P. Why Homeland Security Must Include Food Security. World Hunger Year (WHY) Speaks. Retrieved on November 27, 2008 from http://www.worldhungeryear.org/why_speaks/ws_load.asp?file=20&style=ws_table

Food From the ‘Hood (FFTH) homepage www.foodfromthehood.com

Quinn, M. 2006. The Power of Community : Howe Cuba Survived Peak Oil. Permaculture Activist. Retrieved on November 30, 2008 from http://globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657

Smit, J. A. Ratta, and J. Nasr. 1996. Ruban Agriculture : Food, Jobs, and Sustainable Cities. Untied Nations Development Programme. Retrieved on November 30, 2008 from http://www.energyandenvironment.undp.org/undp/indexAction.cfm?module=Library&action=GetFile&DocumentAttachmentID=2388

Garnett, T. 1996. Growing Food in Cities : A report to highlight and promote the benefits of urban agriculture in the UK. Retrieved on November 24, 2008 from http://www.peoplesgrocery.org/brahm/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/growing%20food%20in%20cities.pdf

City Farmer Homepage. 2002. 44% of Vancouver Households Grow Food. Retrieved on November 28, 2008 from http://www.cityfarmer.org/44percent.html

Heimlich, R. and C. Bernanard. 1993. Agricultural Adaptation to Urbanization : Farm Types in the United States Metropolitan Area. Retrieved on November 29, 2008 from http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/28849/1/21010050.pdf

Community Food Security Homepage www.foodsecurity.org

North American Urban Agriculture Committee. 2003. Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States : Farming from the City Center to the Urban Fringe. A Primer Prepared by the Ciommunity Food Security Coalition’s North American Urban Agriculture Committee. Retrieved on November 30, 2008 from http://www.foodsecurity.org/PrimerCFSCUAC.pdf

Bailkey, M. and J. Nasr. From Brownfields to Greenfields : Producing Food in North American Cities. Community Food Security News. Fall 1999/Winter 2006:6

~~Stesha~~

Original @ Wordout

Urban Agriculture

Image by Raptor Alpha via FlickrI Am Not A Doctor

And neither is Junior Johnson. I’m not a NASCAR fan either, but I have developed a sincere appreciation for at least one thing this man has accomplished.

He makes and sells moonshine. And he does it legally.

Back In The Day

NASCAR fans already know the short history of the sport. It grew out of the mid-20th century moonshine-runners here in North Carolina, driving powerful muscle cars from county to county, delivering the illegal drink to those who would have it, regardless of the law.

My grandaddy ran a still, way back then. Here in Rockingham county it was a common sight to see the sheriff drive up and get out of his car, pulling his pants up to cover his enormous belly, looking around like he was the sheriff of Nottingham instead of Rockingham. Yes, the fat sheriff from NC who said things like ‘You in a heap o’trouble, boy’ really DID exist. I have seen him in my childhood, and I will never forget.

It was against the law to make your own liquor here. Still is, as a matter of fact. But Carl Axsom, the high sheriff of Rockingham County, showed up on a regular schedule to load the clear juice into the trunk of his huge Plymouth Fury III. On the side of the car in letters 6 inches tall were the words ‘Carl Axsom, Sheriff’, and down below, in 2″ letters was ‘Rockingham County, North Carolina’.

Sheriff Axsom would pull into the driveway, get out of the car and hike his pants up around his really, and I mean REALLY fat gut. It was his trademark move. He’d ask for my grandaddy and they’d go down one of the little farmroads, down into the ‘holler’, to fetch the stuff. A little while later they’d return, loaded down with the shine and drunk on their asses.

Grandaddy would load the stuff into the official car’s trunk, gallons of it, and the fat man would leave.

Back To The Present

Axsom was defeated in an election by a guy who promised to clean up law enforcement, and he did, as best
he could. My grandaddy got older and finally died, a sober man who spent much of his time reading the Bible. In the end, he was a man I was proud to call my family, a man who finally came to be who he was all along, a good man.

But before I was proud of him, I learned to hate drinking alcohol. I learned it made me feel bad, that I hated the taste of it in all its forms, that I was one of the few lucky ones in my family who would not love the beast that killed. I can drink, and I have been drunk many times. That’s how I learned.

So it came as a special surprise to me that I was planning last week to drink that strongest of drinks, white liquor, in a quantity that even my grandfather might have avoided in his wildest days. And I didn’t plan to eat anything while I pulled this drunk. I was just going to pour the stuff in and see what came out.

Long term readers here at Wordout know I have been sick for awhile. Since November 2007, as a matter of fact. My personal philosophy prohibits me from seeking so-called medical advice except in extreme cases. I won’t go into the reasons or the philosophy right here, but I do have reasons for my stance. So in August, when I bowed to my family’s demands that I at least have some tests done, it was a major deviation from my normal way of living.

The truth is, I thought I was dying. I just wanted to know exactly what it was that was killing me. Because of some really severe pains, I was pretty sure it was something in my circulatory system, so I chose a heart specialist. After nearly $3000 in testing, he assured me my heart was fine, and instead diagnosed me with a severe case of emphysema based on x-rays of my lungs. But he also told me that I was a strange case, as the only indication of severe emphysema was the x-rays. I didn’t exhibit any of the symptoms you’d normally expect from a severely emphysemic patient.

That was in September. By the middle of October, I was very ill. When November rolled around, things took a turn for the worst and within another week or so I was so sick I could barely get out of bed. My skin changed colors, gradually becoming a kind of gray you’d expect to see in a terminally-ill patient. The black circles under my eyes had grown to cover much of my face.

I. Was. Dying.

Mysterious Ways and Unexpected Means

I’m a lucky guy, though, and the Lord of the Universe wasn’t finished with me. My niece would come to check on me every day back then, and sometimes would force me to let her drag me to Chaney’s, my favorite local restaurant, for soup, or whatever she could get me to eat.

One particular night during the worst of this ordeal she lugged me over to the restaurant. I hated going there by then. Chaneys is one of the most popular places in this little southern town, and I didn’t want folks I know to see me in that shape. But this night it paid off. One of my friends, a customer with a contract for IT services (which had been neglected for a month due to my illness) came in with his wife and sat at the table next to us.

Southern hospitality always trumps everything else. Forgetting myself, I asked how he’d been lately. It’s the polite question, the equivalent of asking how’s the weather. The answer is almost always as shallow as the question. I expected Tommy to look at me, see my illness, and say something like ‘fine’ and then ask about my health. That’s the normal way it goes.

But he didn’t. He told me how he’d been sicker than he had been in over 30 years, maybe longer. Told me how he’d seen the doctors, taken the antibiotics which did nothing, taken the anti-viral shot which did nothing, followed all the doctor’s orders, all with no improvement. It lasted for 5 weeks he said. ( His wife leaned around him and said that he had looked JUST LIKE ME.) He listed his symptoms, and they were exactly what I was going through.

Well, he looked fine to me, so I asked him what he did to finally get rid of it, which brings me back to Junior Johnson. The cure my friend Tommy came up with was to go back to his childhood, back in the 1950s and 1960s, when his grandma would treat nearly everything with what else but liquor and honey.

Liquor and honey was a big cure-all around my house, too, when I was that young. My grandaddy’s wife, Mama Lacie, would make a small glass with the white liquor and honey and make us drink it. I never understood why, and being so young, I never asked or gave it much thought. It was just one of those things that eventually went away as the 60s turned into the 70s and then the 80s and we became too ‘modern’ and ‘advanced’ in our thinking, throwing away the old so that we could embrace the new.

The wisdom of trying to eliminate an illness gave way to the madness of managing it. Younger doctors with much education brought with them a distrust of the old ways, the ways that had kept us alive these last 40,000 years, the ways which brought us here to this pinnacle.

He Looked JUST LIKE YOU

Back to the story: Tommy said he just sat himself down on his couch in front of his 60 inch plasma TV, turned off all his phones, and broke out the best of the best of the ’shine, a quart of white lightning made by the only guy in North Carolina with a license to do so. He drank that quart over a period of about 36 hours, supplemented only with chicken noodle soup (another old remedy, which recent studies have shown has many curative properties which are still not understood well.)

He said that was all it took. He coughed and shat the infection out of his body within the next two days and had felt fine since. (Again, his wife leans forward and says ‘He looked JUST LIKE YOU, Jon’.) And then he makes a comment that stuck in my head: ‘I think I was on the verge of having walking pneumonia’.

That stuck in my head for a few days. I’d been sick off and on for over a year, always the same symptoms, always seemed to be some form of the flu. For decades before, I had hardly a sniffle and then, an entire year of it. I had done what I never do (seen a doctor… and believed him), and I had given up on recovering health. I had updated my will, began to unwind my obligations, started trying to prepare those closest to me for the certain day of my approaching death.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tommy said. I could barely breathe the day I started searching the internet for information on pneumonia. I knew it was a waste of time, but I had nothing else I could do anyway. I felt like a desperate fool, grasping at a hope that would never be real, but I did what I do. I searched and researched and gradually I learned.

I had never found any illness that matched ALL the symptoms I was experiencing. I’d been searching for nearly a year, and had finally given up. You can imagine how it made me feel to find that pneumonia caused every symptom I felt. Well, imagine my surprise when I found a cross-section photo of a pneumatic lung, and compared it to the cross-section photo of an emphysemic lung, and to my eye they were identical!

Legal Lightning

I realized that if indeed I had pneumonia, that could explain the on-again off-again progress of my symptoms over the past year. I had always thought that pneumonia was caused by either bacteria or viral infections, but I learned that there are at least 5 other causes, and that one of the most common causes was from inhaling particulate matter. Even dust can cause the condition to occur.

I called Tommy. I asked him if I could get some of that moonshine from him. He said I could have a quart if I would use it just the way he said. I agreed, and the first day I was barely able to get out of the house, I picked up a quart jar with an ‘A’ on its lid. The ‘A’ designated the highest grade, 180-proof, 90% pure alcohol.

That’s when I learned where the stuff came from. It was from the Piedmont Distillery, owned and operated by Junior Johnson under a license from the state, making him a legal manufacturer and distributor of the most illegal alcohol in North Carolina. Until then, I didn’t know anyone could do that. From what I understand, it was a hard fought battle to get that license.

In the end, I’m glad Junior Johnson didn’t give up. I couldn’t even tell you what the numbers are on his race cars. I don’t know who his sponsors are. And that probably won’t change. Junior Johnson isn’t in my mind associated with racing. In my mind, he’s the guy with the cure for what ailed me.

Alcohol In - Alcohol Out (Plus Lots Of Other… uhhh… Stuff)

I started last Wednesday night about 8 o’clock, the night before Thanksgiving, by drinking a full four ounce dose of the moonshine. It was really hard to swallow, literally. I don’t drink, remember? Can’t stand the taste, can’t stand the feeling in my stomach. But convinced I was dying, I continued with about 2 ounces every two hours. After a few doses I felt just purely awful, but I persevered.

Following Tommy’s advice, I drank this way throughout Thanksgiving day, and around 10pm was a little more than halfway through the quart. That was the total dosage he had set for me, and that’s when I stopped. I wanted to be able to drive to my mom’s house for the big Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Most of my family would be there and I had hopes of looking good and feeling better. They’d been really worried about me lately. I wanted them to see a future with me in it, not in a box.

Thanksgiving, For Real

I won’t describe the nastiness that came out of me. Some of you would enjoy that narrative, but my mother probably wouldn’t, and she still reads Wordout. Suffice it to say that I was both amazed and humbled. Alcohol is one of the few things humans put into their bodies that cannot be metabolized at all. Most other things, once eaten, are broken down into what eventually become sugars that your body uses to regenerate itself.

Alcohol is different. It enters your body and remains alcohol until it leaves your body.(<--NOPE! I WAS WRONG HERE! SEE COMMENTS BELOW) From your stomach it enters your blood, goes immediately to your heart, then your lungs, then is sent to literally every cell in your body. It’s removed from your body through your urine, your sweat, your breath, your feces. It comes out the way it goes in - as alcohol.(Wrong again - see comments below)

But along with it comes many things you never even suspected were in there. I will ignore the other ways it comes out and just say here that the blackness which came out of my lungs, clumps of it at times, was simply astounding. I almost said ‘breath-taking’, but after each spell of coughing this crap up, I could actually breathe BETTER.

It is strange to feel yourself healing, almost minute by minute. Within hours of waking on Friday, I knew I was on the right track. A certain fog that had descended on my mind months ago began to lift. My vision actually cleared a little (I am blind in one eye). The pain that had wrapped around my chest for months was gone. It had completely disappeared from one day to the next (and has still not returned).

Dinner was scheduled for 5pm, and I showed up at my mom’s house around 1 o’clock. There was color on my face, the blackness receded to just under my eyes, and my eyes were clear and sure. I could stand straight and tall - geez, I could stand at all! I felt absolutely fantastic.

They Forced Their Hope Upon Me

It’s been a week now, and I still feel stronger. I am not back to my ‘old self’ yet. I don’t have the physical strength that I had a year ago, and I’ve learned quickly not to expect to recover from a year-long illness overnight. There’s a long row to hoe for me to completely recover, but I can hold that hoe and I know how to use it.

What still brings me to tears is the solemn truth that I had accepted my death as not just a certainty, but an imminent fact. I don’t know if I ever actually gave up - I think I was on that precipice - but I do know that I had accepted it. I was trying to help others accept it, trying to make that inevitable day less painful to them.

But they would not accept it. My niece, my sons, my family and friends - they didn’t let me go. And go I would have, with a dignity and honor I have practiced all my life.

There is no way I can ever thank them enough for that. I hope they always know with certainty that they saved me from an end which I mistakenly thought my own. I hope they know how much that means to me. They forced their hope upon me, when I could find no hope at all.

Death, to me, is not something to be feared. It is not some horrible destiny that awaits us like a ravenous beast, but is instead the natural completion of the time we have here. It’s the last New Thing any of us will experience while we live. Still, to die when there is reason and method to remain with the living would be a sad thing, indeed.

I am Jon. I am alive.

Thanks to PerceptiveTravel for some info used here.

Original @ Wordout

Walking Pneumonia And Catdaddy Moonshine

Image via WikipediaStrong Interaction

What is an atom? Electrons orbiting a nucleus. The nucleus is made of protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons are a made from a class of particles called quarks. There are 6 different types of quarks, and they are always found in groups of 3 in normal matter. With very few exceptions, normal matter in the universe is made up of 2 of these types(the up and the down) and electrons.

The other 4 types of quarks are special cases. They can generally only exist in very controlled(such as the LHC) or very extreme(such as the big bang) conditions. Colliding the nuclei of relatively heavy lead protons at nearly the speed of light, scientists hope to release some of these quarks from the bonds imposed by the Strong Force of physics. If successful, some of the other quarks may be revealed to the ALICE detectors.

The video below, from the ALICE site, does a great job of explaining the ideas behind the experiment:

.

ALICE Postponed

The ALICE experiments were originally scheduled to start in October 2008, but a coolant malfunction in one section of the 27-mile ring caused the tests to be postponed until the spring of 2009.

I am Jon. I’ll write more about this over the next few months, addressing other experiments and the fears that
the ALICE experiment may create dangerous black holes and other exotic physical aberrations, which some fear could destroy the earth.

Original @ Wordout

ALICE And The CERN LHC

Uhh… I Got Behind A Bit…

I got a bit behind this past week. Whether treating my illness or dealing with Thanksgiving, I just didn’t have enough time to keep up here at Wordout. So here is my recent reading list, which I am STILL behind on. My reading list is usually where I get the beginning information for many of the pieces I publish here. Since I am so far behind, some of these things may never get the chance to appear here, but they are worth looking into for those of you who are interested.

For those of you who are not: move along, nothing to see here right now.

Failed Bank List

Too Tired To Succeed

Atlas Shrugged (updated for the markets)

Credit Crisis — The Essentials

Why Did TARP Change Course?

$7.8 TRILLION Bailout

Climate Progress - The Northwest Passage “Not One Cube Of Ice”

Trading Analog Dollars For Digital Pennies

Robert Rubin, Citibank CEO: ‘Nobody was prepared…’

More on Rubin, Citi

Higher Interest Rates on Public Debt

WorldBank Quarterly - China

Nassim Taleb

I am Jon, and that is about an average day’s reading, plus a bit.

Original @ Wordout

Reading List

Image via WikipediaFractal Patterns - Farming To Financial Markets

Thanks to TheBigPicture, I was reminded that I wanted to show you something I found to be just fascinating.

Fractal geometries have been around for quite some time, but it was not until the past 50 years that we started really digging into that area of mathematics. As a matter of fact, the word ‘fractal‘ was coined just over 30 years ago by Benoit B Mandelbrot, the French-American mathematician.

When I was growing up in the red, rolling hills of central North Carolina, I was always in awe of the patterns I saw everywhere in nature. We were farmers, living close to the dirt. We walked with our eyes to the earth, watching each step across an uneven landscape.

As a boy back then, my great-grandfather was one of my best mentors. He taught me how to see the patterns in nature, the signs of the coming rains or snows. He taught me to smell the difference between an ice storm or a snowstorm in the winter, and how to use the moon to estimate the amount of rain we might get.

He taught me to look for patterns. He taught me to look for the similarities of things. He showed me trees in oak leaves, mountains in a freshly turned field. He taught me the practical applications of fractals before I ever learned to do long division.

I wasn’t much of a farmer. By the time I was 10 it was glaringly obvious that of all the young boys in our extended family, I certainly should be one to continue my ’schooling’. My grandfather always told me, ‘Boy, you better be a doctor or a lawyer, cause you won’t ever be able to grow enough food to feed your family.’

I am pretty certain that was a brutal insult, but it was mostly true, so I took no offense. I just read another book, and then another, and then another. When I was 14, my father gave me a subscription to Scientific American magazine, and it was there that I first learned about fractals.

I remember being simply amazed that this French mathematician had created some way of describing patterns in the real world, the world my great-grandfather had shown me all my life. Pa Roberts wasn’t moving around much by then, but I sat and showed him these pictures, and we laughed at the fact that the ‘college folk’ were finally figuring out what his grandparents taught him, what he passed on to me: that the world wasn’t made of straight lines, and that the closer you looked, the more it looked like it did from far away.

Back in the early 60s, when Mandelbrot first started working with fractals, they were quickly applied to the financial markets. There was a consensus that somehow, this ‘new’ math could help to predict, and hence control, risk. Mandelbrot himself has written extensively on the subject, especially over the last 15 years or so.

Much of his later writing has been filled with attempts to correct misunderstandings which developed over time. I haven’t read all of it, and if you’d like to read his own words follow the link above to his Yale University pages. There you will find links to many of his papers dating back to 1960.

The Black Swan

Nassim Taleb is the author of the book, The Black Swan. In 2007, The Black Swan was the #1 selling nonfiction book listed by Amazon.com and spent 17 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. So far it’s been translated into 27 different languages.

The Black Swan gets its name from the centuries-old belief that all swans were white. For thousands of years, the western world had never seen a swan of any other color. Then, Australia was discovered, just a few hundred years ago, and black swans were suddenly common.

Nassim uses this brief bit of human history to illustrate how easily and quickly long-held ‘knowledge’ can be radically altered by simple, though sometimes highly unpredictable events. If even only one black swan had been seen, it would still have changed the belief about the color of swans. Thousands of years of certainty would still have been wiped out.

For the past several years, Nassim has been seen on television and in news and magazine articles, warning of the Black Swan event in the financial markets. Ever-increasing complexity and mismanagement of that complexity by people who don’t understand it but think they do only increases the chances that a major event will happen.

Below is a short video interview, showing Nassim together with Mandelbrot. In the video, it’s obvious that they each agree that a major event is probably already playing itself out right before our eyes, now, in 2008. Watch the video, click the links above. Learn something new, something you already knew.

The Money Quote

‘Never in the history of the world have we faced so much complexity combined with so much incompetence in understanding it’s properties.’

I am Jon, still reminding myself: I am my great-grandfather’s great-grandson.

Original @ Wordout

Mandelbrot’s Math and The Markets

Image by Roberto Rizzato ►pix jockey◄ via FlickrWhere There’s Smoke, There May Be A Screen

According to their website, the Federal Reserve provides the nation with a safe, flexible and stable monetary and financial system. Lately, that seems debatable. Each of us have our own opinions on the state of our financial system.

Nevertheless, this morning there are a couple of important releases on the Fed’s website that are of direct interest to us ‘little guys’. The first concerns a new purchase program aimed at supporting housing prices by increasing credit availability for housing purchases.

The second introduces the TALF, yet another program which seems to be just another smokescreen designed to support the Asset Backed Securities markets which siezed in late September, seen by many as the direct cause of the current global crisis.

Here is the Fed’s 1st press release:

And this is the second:

Pig In A Poke

Importantly, this second release (which appears 1st on the Fed site) seems to be aimed at supporting the issuance and valuations of the very type of securities which precipitated the current financial crisis worldwide. Those so-called ‘AAA-rated tranches’ were and most likely still are filled with toxic waste. THAT is the reason folks stopped buying them, and there has been no indication that anything in that area has changed.

On the other hand, the types of ABS mentioned DO NOT include those backed by the mortgage industry, so that’s a plus. As of yet, we haven’t seen any indication that the types of loans backed by the named industries have been poisoned like the mortgage industry was.

My problem is that the way these securities are created allows toxic loan assets to be bundled in with truly triple-A rated assets and hidden from view. Remember, only one slice in each of these ABS tranches need to be rated AAA to qualify the ENTIRE tranch to be rated AAA. There is no way to know whether these tranches have any real quality at all.

I am Jon, and as much as I want to believe… I just cannot. It sounds trite, but time will tell us the truth.

Original @ Wordout

Fed TALF Announced

Word Bubble Pictures Are Worth…

More than pictures alone, word bubble pictures can paint a portrait worth billions…

Thanks to Mint, via TheBigPicture…

Of course, pictures like this do little to point to solutions, but then again, solutions must begin with understanding of the problems at hand. With that in mind, take a few minutes to just look through the bubbles within the collapsing bubble.

I am Jon, just another boy in this bubble.

Original @ Wordout

Visual Guide To Financial Crisis

Image via Wikipedia Citi Bailout - US Govt Screws US Again

Once again, the US Government has screwed us all with another undeserved bailout of a financial behemoth. Citigroup, whose exposure to subprime mortgages and their derivatives caused a more than 87% drop in ‘value’ this year, has been bailed out with not just a cash infusion, but substantial guarantees against future losses.

Longtime readers will recall that I’ve published pieces on Citi already twice this year. First, I reported on their choice of using known spam outfits to deliver official emails from the company, opening up their customers to more spam, as well as having their emails blocked by most spam filters.

Then in September I reported on their exposures to several types of risk, most notably in the subprime and derivatives markets, which made them particularly susceptible to failure. At that time, their share’s prices had declined only around 60% through the year. The conclusion of that piece was that Citi was indeed a risk to any and all who held their paper.

The Trick Is To Try To Swallow It

Of course, both of those were published BEFORE the Treasury Department rammed the $700 billion bailout down our throats. Had I known then that the Goldman Sachs alumni who are in control of our economy would be so eager to leverage the Fed up to 50%, higher even than any of the ‘Not Quite Big Enough To Save’ firms that have since disappeared (think Lehman Brothers, et al), then my conclusion would have been a bit different.

As long as our Goldman government is allowed to just create cash, adding to the already back-breaking burden of future taxes, companies like Citi will continue to survive and even to flourish.

From the AP report (emphasis mine):

Note the names in BOLD up there. Each of them have close connections to Goldman Sachs. Some of you might be surprised to see Obama’s name listed. After all, isn’t he ‘change we can believe in’? You may be surprised to learn that he recieved nearly a million dollars from Goldman Sachs in support of his campaign for president. They were, in fact, the second largest contributor to his campaign.

But don’t feel bad. The whole world believed the earth was the center of the universe for thousands of years.

The Slaves Rise Up… And Say Hoo-ray!

So, in other words, we ( yes, you and me) will have not only given Citi $45 billion in cash, we (right again, you and me!) are on the hook for up to $275 billion of almost certain losses due to their bad paper. Add it up: it means they’ve got up to $310 billion out of US, thanks to our Goldman Sachs controlled government.

America. Earth. Have you guys been paying attention? Is it starting to become obvious to you yet? Don’t you see what is happening right in front of your nose? You and your children and their children and theirs will not pay enough taxes to generate this kind of cash.

We are being sold into slavery, and as a species, we seem to be applauding.

I am Jon, with not even one hand clapping.

Original @ Wordout

Citibank Risk 3 - Another WTF Bailout

Image by afagen via FlickrThe Fed Will Say Probably Say A-OK

This is a super short post folks. I just wanted to remind everybody that in 2006, the peak year for Subprime Derivatives, GMAC was among the top 6 companies producing these toxic securities. Of those 6 companies, only 2 are still in business: GMAC and Goldman Sachs. All the others have failed. If the request is denied, GMAC will certainly join the deadpool (which is definitely where they belong). Golman Sachs, you will recall, is where we got Hank Paulson and Neil Kashkari, among others.

GMAC is one of the biggest reasons that Detroit is in such lousy fiscal shape. My opinion is that they should NOT be allowed to become a bank holding company. Becoming a bank holding company will allow them to borrow money directly from the Fed. That way, they will get their bailout, one way or the other, at OUR EXPENSE. Remember, money borrowed from the Fed is generated through our taxes.

Nevertheless, the Fed will probably allow their request to be approved. More ripoffs of the US taxpayer, brought to you by our friends at the Fed and the US Treasury. Why are we allowing the people who created this mess to control how we respond to it? Why are we just rolling over for the rich?

I am Jon, and I am really getting tired of bailing out the fat-cats.

Original @ Wordout

GMAC Files To Become Bank Holding Company

Stop Taking Their Drugs, America!

Thanks to Karl Denninger, from The Market Ticker. PLEASE watch this video.

And from another Denninger post (emphasis original):

Damn My Hippie Generation!

Folks, haven’t you had enough of this crap yet?

Isn’t it becoming painfully obvious to you that your government is and has been lying to you all along, just so that their buddies in the corporate world can continue stealing you blind?

If you haven’t seen this yet for what it really is, STOP TAKING THOSE DAMNED DRUGS! And it’s not just the prozac and xanax I’m talking about.

Stop watching FOX. Stop watching CNN. Stop watching MSNBC. For the first time in years, I watched those guys today, just to see what brand of kool-aid America has been drinking. I was amazed.

Gone is any attempt at professionalism. All that I found was a clever (and I don’t mean that in the superlative way) concerted attempt, across all the networks, at OBVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT DISINFORMATION. Cleverly disguised as info-tainment. These guys are consummate performers. But honest? Don’t count on it.

So, what are you to do? You think it’s better to have some information, even if it’s unreliable? Would you stake your future on that? Or the future of your family?

STOP WATCHING THOSE ASSHATS! Start digging on the internet. Look through the CSPAN archives. Search intently for the ’source documents’ which will tell you what is really going on.

Do you really need those unprofessional jerks at ‘Morning Joe’ to filter your news and information? Does that idiot biatch on CNN know more than you? Hint: SHE’S READING FROM A TELE-PROMPTER!

All those fools are nothing more than PARROTS, SAYING WHAT THEY’RE TOLD TO SAY, so that you, my fellow American, won’t descend on the District of Columbia and demand retribution from the liars and thieves who are ruining this economy. The guys who are walking away with literally trillions of dollars that belong to US.

Bush, Chaney, Paulson, Bernanke. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Digging deeper I am positive we will find famous folks from both sides of the political spectrum. How do we find them? Same as always: Follow The Money. Which, incidentally, adds up to more than 2 trillion dollars in the US so far (not counting the so-called bailout).

They are stealing us blind, because we are allowing them to do it. Damn my hippie generation! Where did the rest of us go?

I am Jon, undrugged and unhappy with our nation.

Original @ Wordout

Where Did My America Go?

This Sunday includes a short history lesson, a Tull video from 1978, some short comments about the band and a personal note to some of my favorite folks. I hope you make time to enjoy…

The Namesake

From the Wikipedia entry:

‘The Flute Is A Heavy Metal Instrument’

What can you say about a group of guys who made a video like that in 1978? What can you say about a bunch of bearded heads who were then and are still playing shows to sold out crowds worldwide? What can you say about a group of guys who beat out Metallica in 1987, winning a grammy for ‘Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance’? (Crest of a Knave, in case you’re wondering.)

And what can you say about Ian Anderson, the consummate frontman performer for the band? How can you expect anyone to believe that he taught himself to play that flute, along with nearly every other instrument ever to appear on a Tull album? Would it help to know that he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Literature in 2006?

I have listened to these guys for roughly the last 40 years, and they have been one of my favorite bands. Even the releases I didn’t like, I still knew they were good. For instance, ‘Passion Play’ was a smashing multi-decade success, but I just don’t like most of it. In contrast, an instant personal favorite - ‘Thick As A Brick’ - took years to catch on, but you’re lucky to ever hear more than the first 12 minutes played on the air.

Personal Note

Some of you already know and some of you don’t, so here it is: I haven’t been feeling too well lately and am currently in the process of making some major changes to my lifestyle. I’m sorta flying by the seat of my pants here, and am in no way certain of the outcome of all these attempted changes.

The changes I am making are difficult, including things like not smoking, trying to exercise, monitoring my diet and body like a hawk, and deciding this past week that I will most likely need to give up Computergeek Services, the business I have grown and loved these past 10 years.

My customers, those loyal folks who have kept me going, are like family to me. I promise them that they will not be simply cast away like a used-up dishrag. They’ve become accustomed to personal service at a more than reasonable price, and I am doing everything I can to ensure that will continue.

My readers here are a constant source of amazement and exhilaration to me. As long as I am able, I will continue to write and share with you just as I have done here since 2004. If I lose the rights to this website (which is to say if I sell CGS), I will simply transfer the feeds to my personal domain - jonknight.us - and we’ll just carry on from there.

I am Jon, and I plan to stay that way.

Original @ Wordout

Jethro Tull

Eating Crow

In the past, I’ve said some… unkind things about Mr. Pickens and his ‘Pickens Plan‘ for energy independence. I want to apologize for that. I think I didn’t quite understand until this past week.

You see, I thought he wanted to convert our cars to run on natural gas. Natural gas is what Pickens has more of than pretty much anybody else in the USA. So when I saw his commercials this year on the television, and when I went to his newly created (at the time) site, that’s what I saw.

Well, sometimes we can look right at something and not recognize what it is we’re seeing. That’s what happened to me. I saw what I was expecting to see. I saw my own fear, reflected back at me through the filter of my prejudice.

Watch the short excerpt below from Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. You’ll see and hear T. Boone Pickens plainly say exactly what he wants, and why. It’s not the cars he wants on natural gas - it’s our huge fleet of trucks. He wants the cars powered by electricity from all those wind farms.

(It would help to reduce confusion if he would review his site, link above, and clarify things a bit. He STILL has that natural gas Honda Civic shown there… just sayin.)

Anyway, this makes alot of sense. Check it out:

Mr Pickens, I apologize. It’s so easy these days to be cynical about rich guys saying they have a plan to help America. The country is literally run by folks like that who truly do not have our best interests at heart.

Look at Paulson. Look at Bernanke. Look at all the little Bushies.

Mr. Pickens, you might be a rich gas man. You might be a ruthless corporate raider.

But you are not cut from the same cloth as those guys I just mentioned. You, sir, are better than they are. And I believe you have one of the best plans for our energy future.

I am Jon, eating crow. And you know what? Cooked with natural gas, crow tastes pretty damned good.

Original @ Wordout

T Boone Pickens on Daily Show

Thin White Duke

Otherwise known as David Bowie…

I am Jon. Live.

Original @ Wordout

Stay Live

Image via WikipediaWhat Is Wrong With This Picture?

From Yahoo News:

And from Reuters: