Category: Social Missions

Announcing my Desire to Run for President of the United States

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I’ve watched for my entire adult life the progressing ‘vanity operation’ that is the American Presidency…and think it time for substance over artificial tanning.

Therefore, I am announcing a desire to run for President of the United States.

First, to aid all the dirt mongers, trollers, and folks of bad character, I list the following as assistance in your investigations of things that might be used to demean:

  1. I was an anxious child, so was not a good hitter in Little League (I was, to my credit, excellent in the field).
  2. I did an extremely bad job as President of my high school honor society.
  3. In the last month of my senior year in college I copied the lab data of one of my friends for an engineering report.
  4. I was a conscientious objector to the military and served three years as a surgical technician rather than as a combatant.
  5. I, during my twenties, had three years of psychoanalysis at the Pritzker Hospital at the University of Chicago.
  6. During the last couple years of my marriage I was an irascible and bad husband.
  7. I was once arrested at an airport when a TSA accused me of ‘throwing’ a bag of cancer medication at them (I tossed it on the conveyor and it slid off and accidentally hit their leg).
  8. I was once accused by a bank of kiting checks (it was in the 80s and as I remember it was a couple checks for $100 ….you would need to talk to the bank…although they, like many banks, are no longer in existence).
  9. I occasionally get angry and curse.
  10. A female companion in 2016/17 asked for a restraining order saying she ‘feared for her life’ (you need to ask her …I have no idea…at the time she did it we had not seen one another in months).

My worst offense, by far, is that I have little interest in accruing money. I believe money is to use responsibly for societal good…so try to minimize what I personally use (and even then think I take too much). My tax filings, therefore, show minimal income.

I feel certain, given the current political atmosphere, you can find something else…although the list is thorough from my memory.

Also, I never saw myself running for President, so would undoubtedly have done a better job as President of my high school honor society.

I am serious about my desire.

I think my character is sterling. At the least, I could return integrity and moral responsibility to the Office of President….and disconnect the Office from the influence of money.

My platform…. transition America from a nation built far to often on slavery and cheap labor to a nation that educates everyone on new forms of free enterprise that are skill based, promote shared ownership, create broad wealth, and respect the earth and the earth’s creatures.

Order of Existence

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Over the past few years my colleagues and I have drawn from our own experiences, research materials, knowledge of other colleagues/acquaintances – as well as life and farming intuition – to develop what we first titled ‘ A Handbook for Agro-ecological Practices on Specialty Farms’.

In a larger context (over the past 20 years) we’ve worked with colleagues, farmers, scientist, economist, etc. to provide tools and methods to evaluate land and land use. Those methods and tools, primarily scientific and technical, have been designed to allow a more conscious and comprehensive ethic for land use decisions.

The interest in our work has been narrow and limited…..and I think there are numerous cultural conditions which explain the limited interest.

Since July of this year, I see our past work in a much different light. Recent political, economic, and personal events have changed my perception. Those events have also given the work a more compelling validity.

As a young person, my father had a printing and small publishing business. His typesetter, Joseph Dickson, spent a good bit of his life working on a volume based upon his belief that the Book of Revelations was – at its heart – a farmer’s almanac.

Ever since that experience I have  often interpreted the Gospels as metaphors for nature (and the workings of nature).

I have come to see our agro-ecological work as a very particular ‘order of existence’.

Our work is an ethical set of behaviors and practices within a specific societal situation (our community).

We have worked diligently toward defined, justified beliefs – rather than opinion.

The knowledge we derive cannot be generalized. It is location specific.

The methods for deriving the behaviors and practices, however, could be used in any location. The resulting ‘order of existence’ will vary dramatically based upon local conditions. There will also be certain practice truths that will remain relevant to diverse locations.

Our work is both agricultural and religious. It respects Berry’s Solving for Pattern in Agriculture. It holds possibilities for rural communities.

Knowledge Informing Affection

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I’ve been doing research, readings, and some meetings in search of an approach that respects scientific knowledge, knowledge development, historical agricultural intuition, agro-ecology…and affection, love, and reasonable compassion.

It has been driven out of a dissatisfaction with much of current industrial agriculture as well as some current agricultural jargon…. organic, sustainable, bio-dynamic, resilience, externalities….. and a few other terms I find troublesome cliches.

Also, I simply don’t like ‘fancy’ language.

A few of the previous weblog posts begin to address this concern.

Recently I’ve concentrated on a few sources/conversations that begin to identify a path:

  1. The writings and sermons of Dr. Russell Moore, whom I’ve previously mentioned…and, by extension, the Bible.
  2. Review of past writings by Wendell Berry…particularly Life is a Miracle.
  3. Conversations and an exchange of writings with the new President of my undergraduate engineering school concerning the engineering curriculum and engineering ethics….and the straightforward recognition that perhaps the best method to improve an ‘industrial’ engineering curriculum is through the student’s food services.
  4. Some research in the fields of psychiatry and psychology.

Three comments:

  1. Scientific knowledge, although extremely important, is severely limited.
  2. Love and affection are sound pillars for human action.
  3. Humans are deeply flawed moral beings.

An agriculture based upon ‘knowledge informing affection’…and acknowledging that science, truth, data, etc. are best utilized as information for affection…seems worth pursuing.

Mystery, Original Sin, Agriculture

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I’ve been reading a new work by an old friend, Wendell Berry, titled A Small Porch.

Also…have been reading from the writings of Russell Moore, ethicist for the Southern Baptist congregations.

Both writers are concerned about our societal loss of soul.

Industrial animal agriculture and the treatment of soil by industrial grain farming are unfortunate and enormous examples of a loss of soul.

Mr. Berry points out the inherent mystery in our universe…how, whatever new knowledge we gain, there ALWAYS remains great mystery. From that realization he infers the need to act humbly.

Mr. Moore points out that, as humans, we are profoundly flawed…thus the religious concept of original sin. He also infers from that original sin a need to act humbly.

I too am concerned about our souls.

Both writers believe careful scale, humility, and reasonable compassion are central to good work.

Mapping the Seven Deadly Sins in America

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At a time when I’m feeling less than positive about my community and American society, I also notice a LOT of anecdotal information on sin:

1) Pope Francis is encouraging his flock to be more pious in a major church document.
2) Michael Soule, a rigorous scientist and the ‘father’ of conservation biology, is writing a book about sin. He is sincerely distressed at the new thinking in ecology represented by Peter Karieva (TNCs Chief Scientist) and efforts like the Natural Capital Project.
3) This clever (but not very deep) mapping of the seven deadly sins in America.

The Maps

I can’t help but notice that the Mid-Atantic East Coast (DC area) seems to have a corner on the deadly sin market.

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

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November 19th is the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Ken Burns is asking people to read and recite his short, but eloquent speech….

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Young Farmers Break The Bank…Continued…3% Of Your Wealth

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In the last post, I recommended rethinking how your savings, investments, pensions, etc. are being utilized. Most conventional investment mechanisms used by Wall Street do little to diversify wealth and expand social equity (many would say today’s financial markets do quite the opposite – they are, in essence, wealth concentrators). Invest 3% of your wealth in local farmers and food enterprises….and advocate that your community’s institutions, foundations, etc. do the same!

Rhode Island has two major foundations, The Rhode Island Foundation and The Champlin Foundations. Both foundations had above $500 million in assets. I am not familiar with the investment management of The Champlin Foundations.

The Rhode Island Foundation contracts their investment management to a private consulting firm who in turn contracts with other investment advisory firms to manage particular industry/area portfolios. There is no overriding social responsibility criteria to their consultant (I’m certain, I requested it and their only social responsibility actions are to contract with a consultant who advises them how to vote on proxy issues). There is no overriding agro-ecological responsibility criteria.

I have requested a list of their investments and did not receive a reply (although I did receive a long email from their CEO defending their investment behavior).

May I suggest you write to the major private and public foundations and retirement funds in your community/state and ask them 1) if they have social responsibility criteria for their investments, 2) if they have agro-ecological responsibility criteria for their investments, and 3) if they have a list of their investments on a given recent date that they might provide to you.

Please ask them to consider investing 3% of their wealth in sustainable, socially responsible, local farm and food ventures.

Rural Ethics and Risk Management

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This is a lovely, thoughtful article about West, Texas.

The Article

Having sat through last week’s tragedy in Boston (with a daughter’s apartment abutting Watertown) I became acutely aware of the ‘uncertainty’ of urban areas….and the limitations of even masses of good-willed police and soldiers.

The article is an affirmation of the comfort provided by small communities.

Give Directly

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An interesting new model for charity…give money directly to needy folks…no strings.

Give Directly

Many charitable organizations use a model that trys to make decisions for the poor, including determining what is best for them. Evidently Give Directly is finding there is evidence that direct ‘no strings’ money can work well…and has an even greater multiplier than traditional charitable approaches.