Hey, guess what? Edna signed on and is ready to do some serious bloggity blogging! Let's give her a big, warm, AE hug, huh? And, since she is the namer of this blog, it would be appropriate and right for Edna to give us the skinny on what accidental environmentalism is all about. We need structure! A framework from which to build this shining city in the ecoblogosphereosystem.

I'll Have the Blue Petri Plate Special, Please
Delicious G is on the right track -- now let's take it over the top! Can you imagine buying a delicious, juicy steak that was raised in a petri dish? Neither can I! Thanks, Doctor Awesome!

I hate that I'm such a blog hog, but I keep running across stuff. Today, appropriately enough, I'm gonna blog about hog.

Somebody e-mailed me the latest hog op/ed from The New York Times Select. I'm not "select," so normally I can't read anything graced with orange logos in The New York Times, but for some reason when I clicked on the link I found out I'm getting a free 14-day trial! So I can read Bob Herbert's column about how Smithfield Foods is a big union buster.

Not that this was much of a shock, since I read Fast Food Nation (that is not an Amazon link, btw, I'm done with those) and since I once lived in Iowa, home of many pigs and many people from Mexico brought there to process pigs. Iowa was good to me, what with all the awesome Mexican restaurants. Iowa is not so good to its meat packing plant workers and its pigs.

Temple Grandin has fascinating things to say about pigs and ominous things to say about how their breeding and confinement affects not only them but the quality of our nation's pork. So does Harper's. (If you don't want to buy the May 2006 Harper's, you can read the article here by signing up for a FREE TRIAL!)

And if you already used up your 14-day NYTselect period and you don't want to buy any books today or sign up for any FREE TRIALS, you can read this short piece about a lady who thinks Smithfield Foods is causing her house to disintegrate.

Want to know how to keep your money out of the pockets of mean ol' union bustin', homewreckin' Smithfield Foods and avoid eating watery, icky pork from discontented pigs, all in one simple step? Okay, then, here it is:

Stay out of the grocery store!

A Porkalicious Blip:
Today's blip is a recipe! Take one (1) strip bacon from a pig who knew how to live right. Cut it into little bacon shavings (cross-wise, not lengthwise so they're like an inch long and half a centimeter wide). Put same in big cast iron pan on lowish heat and cook them to a frazzle. (Don't burn them, but do cook 'em good.) While the bacon sizzles, cut up a whole ton (I don't really worry about the amount, I just cook whatever I happen to have--if there's more squash, it'll be less bacony, if less squash, more bacony) of yellow squash (the crookneck ones, not the ones that look like little flying saucers) from the farmers' market or your backyard or your neighbors' backyard. Cut your yellow squash into very thin rounds. If you have a Benriner you can make short work of this. Put the squash in your salad spinner in layers, salting each layer. Put the salad spinner over a big bowl. You want the water to drain out of the squash into the bowl, so salt liberally. Now cut up onions. Depending on how much you like onions, use anywhere from one part onion, four parts squash all the way up to a 1-1 ratio of onion to squash. The bacon should be about done now, so throw in the onion. While the onion cooks, squeeze the water out of the squash with your hands. Maintaining the salad spinner-over-bowl configuration, spin the rest of the water out of the squash. Don't just throw out the squash water. It's got all kinda squash nutrients in it! Pour it in a cup and put the cup in the fridge. Put the squash in with the rest of the stuff and cook cook cook until it's all sweet and bacony delish. It might need a little more salt--it's supposed to be pretty salty. It will definitely need a ton of black pepper. Serve piping hot.

What To Do About Our Crap:
This is in answer to G's commentary the other day. I think we should all consider the possibility of using composting toilets! I tried to suggest this to my old man last year and he immediately rejected (unfairly, I think) the idea of pooping into a bucket. Hey, you know, I wonder if Wikipedia has an entry about composting toilets...I'm going to check...Oh my gosh! It does! And you can look at it here.

Oh, hey, here's another thing that sucks:

Turns out there's "a virulent pox on the world's oceans."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean30jul30,0,6670018,full.story

It seems that the weird, ancient wannabes that preceeded all us multicellular cool kids are making a comeback. They're laying seige to the oceans, killing off fish and seals and what not and making life hell for fisherfolk the world over.

The L.A. Times says, Fish, corals and marine mammals are dying while algae, bacteria and jellyfish are growing unchecked. And what can unchecked jellyfish lead to? Try nuclear power plant malfunction!

The L.A. Times says, We're pushing the oceans back to the dawn of evolution.

The L.A. Times says... look, I'm sorry, I know I'm going overboard with the splash quotes no pun intended, but the whole article is a dang splash quote. And I'm not doing that thing where you take the most incendiary paragraph and split it up into nine separate splash quotes. I am telling you there is enough freakish one-celled-organism mayhem out there to provide a solid three or four pages of pure D horror! And the worst part? At the top of the article, in little bitty words, it says... part one!

Look at this:
"It's like acid," Tanner said. "I couldn't believe it. It kept pulling the skin off."

and this:
"We checked this 20 times. It was mind-boggling. It was like 'The Blob.' "

and this:
"It comes up like little boils," said Randolph Van Dyk, a fisherman whose powerful legs are pocked with scars. "At nighttime, you can feel them burning. I tried everything to get rid of them. Nothing worked."

and this:
we are witnessing "the rise of slime."

Well, gol! Say, why's all that stuff happening, anyhow?

Well, continues the ever helpful L.A. Times, 'cause Industrial society is overdosing the oceans with basic nutrients — the nitrogen, carbon, iron and phosphorous compounds that curl out of smokestacks and tailpipes, wash into the sea from fertilized lawns and cropland, seep out of septic tanks and gush from sewer pipes.

So if after all my cut'n'paste slavery you still want to skip the article, basically the story goes like this: we took all the cool stuff out of the ocean and ate it, and then we crapped in the ocean. Now there's no more cool stuff in the ocean and all the creepy stuff in the ocean is getting fat off our crap.

What can we do about our crap? Maybe nothing. If we don't see a reason to do anything about it, nothing for sure. Maybe we'll just go on crapping until we crap ourselves out. But if we do want to do something, it's at least possible we may be able to reduce our output enough to make a slight difference.

How? Well, one way to reduce your load of crap is to stop supporting corporate agriculture. Don't buy food unless you know who grew it and unless you trust that they grew it right. It's a simple and appealing maxim: buy from people you're pretty sure won't throw crap in the sea. More simple and appealing yet,

Stay out of the grocery store.

Today's Blip!
A good book to read is The Ethical Gourmet. Read the fish section so that you'll know what species we're gorging on to the detriment of ourselves and to the benefit of the rising tide of slime.

It's Hard Out Here For A Journo*
I just saw this really disturbing story about a journo/activista, Josh Wolf, who was just sent to FEDERAL prison because he refused to turn over video tape to a judge investigating alleged arson (attempt to burn a police car) that occured during an anarchist demonstration on July 8, 2005. Not just Journo Jail, not even "Double Jail", but FEDERAL PRISON:
And here's a link to the video that he has published online:
What exactly are the limits of what courts can request of journalists? Where are the lines being drawn? The judge, William Alsup, after the hearing (in which Wolf was found in contempt) had this to say:

Every person, from the president of the United States down to you and me, has to give information to the grand jury if the grand jury wants it.

And he's right because the shield laws for jounalists in California do not apply to Federal cases (the police car is federal property because the city police receive federal funds).
Here is a Wikipedia link about Freedom of the Press (in case you were wondering).

What I want to know is, does the tape Wolf took actually show a police car being burned? If it does, should he turn it over or still refuse? Okay, here's my take on this: Videotaping your stupid anarchist pals attempting to shove a burning mattress under a police car is just plain stupid. You start the tape after the mattress is under the car and your friends are safely ensconced in the next county, okay? If you're going to be a g-d d'd anarchist activist journo at least have the sense to not implicate your friends. Also, if you're going to be on the other end of the camera and you are a naive anarchist activist protesting the G8 summit, here is a short list of things you should not do:
1. Throw things at businesses.
2. Throw things belonging to businesses into the street.
3. Break into businesses and steal things.
You see, following just these three things (and I could go on and on about things you shouldn't do at a protest march) will make your experience, and the experience of those around you, less hellish in the long run. Because, even though you are a 20 year old anarchist activist who hates corporations and/or massive government invading every facet of your life (and who doesn't?), doing the above three things will not only possibly land you in jail, but also enrage the businesses large and small and cause them to cement in their minds a very good reason why anarchist activists should be eradicated. Do you see the logic, idiot 20 year old anarchist activist? If you act like an a-hole in public (instead of in the privacy of your own commune, like lots of other rational folks do) people will naturally conclude that YOU ARE AN A-HOLE and deserve to be locked away.
And, if you are a anarchist activist journo who happens to be taping your friends being a-holes in public (are you getting tired of me saying "a-hole" instead of "asshole" yet? My posts are clean, okay?) then you will not only be locked away, but put in FEDERAL PRISON when you try to do your ethical journalistic duty by not revealing your sources -- in effect, living up to the ideal of Freedom of the Press which supposedly the first amendment guarantees for you and me.
The frightening lesson here, kids, is that unless you are just as devious and mean-spirited as the people who wish to jail and suppress your kind because you are essentially right about a lot of things, you will be neutralized.
Boy, I love being able to rant and only provide the least amount of anectdotal evidence I possibly can. Ain't America great?

*With apologies to all those who previously called a moratorium on play-ons related to the Three 6 Mafia fiasco by a similar name.