New on the VPIRG website is a report entitled, Generating Failure: How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming.

And I got halfway through my fridge… and it got dark.

I guess given everything, if it takes me two days to clean out the Fridge, that’s not so bad.

Have a good week!

The year before in the Fall of 1988, I had been in Europe traveling around for three months, a back pack, youth hostels, a EuroPass and the open road. The post-college amazing adventure.

The following is the entry in my journal from the time I was in Berlin and walked along the Wall.

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Oh yeah, it’s Monday now. I’m alone in the flat where Jorg is staying. I treasure my time alone in safe havens. Take a slow shower and tune out the world for a couple of hours.

Last night I sat on a platform overlooking the Berlin Wall.  On the Western side there is graffiti.  Some of it is rude, some political and all of it is art. It is East German property so it is not against the law to paint on it. The frantic colors contrast with the stark border  of the area in between the wall and the electric fence fifty feet or so across.

It’s a no man’s land, and a no woman’s land.

There are watchtowers watching the guards watching the walk from where we were watching. Now I suppose the DDR has me on videotape. I think that the DOE has better tapes of me.

Everyone watches and waits. Maybe they wait for history to repeat itself. What they don’t realize is that we no have no choice. History cannot repeat itself. It would mean the end of life as we have it.

The Russians cannot cross the line into the West and we cannot cross the line into the East. We need to respect the barrier without resorting to mutual destruction in order to maintain the borders.

We seem to have lost respect for many things. We don’t respect the Earth. We can’t respect the system. We shouldn’t respect the Businesses. And our leaders aren’t people to respect. We must learn to respect each other.

Sitting at the Wall was a centering thing for me. There are no delusions at the wall. It is a concrete reminder of the arms race, militarism, fear, mistrust and misunderstanding that we have for each other.

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Shit, it’s already Friday night. This week has flown by. Yesterday, I walked up the wall to Checkpoint Charlie. What a scary, deadly farce all of it is. The wall is a masterpiece of expression. It is an expression of the arms race. A concrete wall beyond with each must never cross. It is Travis drawing the line [in the sand] at the Alamo.  It is “are you with me or agin’ me.” It is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Because it is the whole world that will lose. That includes all of us.

The wall is also one of the most incredible art museums I have ever seen. I enjoyed walking up the wall looking at the most incredibly creative drawings and impressions, as good as any in the Quay D’Orsay Museum. It is living art that changes each day.

It is the art on the wall that adds a touch of irony to an otherwise serious event. The Wall is East German property, therefore the West Berlin police legally can’t punish the artists.

Some years after the Wall was built, some demonstrators begain tearing down the Wall and the West German police got stuck defending the Wall.

Is it to keep them out or us in? Or both?

There are staircases leading to platforms from which you can see over into East Berlin. The ultimate in Zoo Technology.

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Back to today:  The Wall is gone. It went away through people’s actions. Once they knew they wouldn’t be destroyed by the Soviet Army if they took action.

East Berlin and East Germany are part of history.

Wow.

Cassandra Brush, the event organizer, said, “Next year we will call it a Winter Clothes Giveaway” because people come thinking they need to swap something, but they don’t. She added, “People should just come and take what they need.”

Children’s coats and boots were in short supply, but the men’s and women’s selection was great.

The leftover clothes were taken by the Barre Evangelical Free Church, for their Winter Coat Giveaway next Saturday, November 14th.

Cassandra Brush is a local permaculture advocate who has recently begun a new food blog and is developing a project to help WIC recipients, CSA participants and people who receive food from Food Banks to make the most out what they get.

After we all ate dinner, I boiled the carcass for stock and made a tasty chicken soup.

I could tell the love and care that Cassandra nurtured her chickens with. And next year, I will — I hope — be able to raise meat birds. The quality of this was light years better than store bought.

Check out her site: Cooking with Cassandra. Replete with recipes and down home advice. It’s an awesome site.

Painting of Cora Brooks, by Candy Barr

Tonight the Woodbury Library hosted a poetry reading featuring poet and writer Cora Brooks. Amazing poetry, stories and laughter filled the library for more than two hours. Poems were also read by Woodbury poet Phyllis Larrabee and Merry Gangemi, host of WGDR’s Woman Stirred Radio.

Cora Brooks, author of the children’s poem, Sock Monster read her poem and handed out copies of it, illustrated by Vermont children.

All-in-all, a wonderful evening had by all.

More work by Candy Barr can be found at her website.

Tonight in the village of Woodbury, the children were out in force going house-to-house trick-or-treating. The costumes were wonderful and the mood was cheery. And the candy that the villagers handed out was really, really generous. One really wonderful treat was the bag of daffodil bulbs we got from a local woman.

All the children went home with their bags full and their hopes high on candy, candy, candy.

When we were in Woodbury village, (given the price of candy bars these days) I estimated one haul at $20 for the group of kids we were with. At least ten candy bars were handed out, large ones…. not the small bite size, but full on candy bars. You can clearly say that Woodbury did its part for the holiday economy. And what fun it was!

My kids’ costumes were Hello Kitty and a regular cat… So, we went up to the doors crying out, ” ‘Hello”-ween”

My daughter found a glow-in-the-dark bracelet which she began calling the “CandyTrack 3000″, after the local news’ weather radar system’s name. And damned if this CandyTrack 3000 didn’t predict the swank halloween opportunities.

In the South Woodbury village we were often just the second group of kids out, and the people handing out the candy were oh-so-happy to participate in this oddly American holiday of sweet excess.

There for a while the rain stopped, the evening was warm and the sky still cloudy and dark. It was paradise. Walking through South Woodbury, safe, warm and happy with my two daughters, I couldn’t have been happier. A wonderful respite from the stress of the day, and the days to come.

The pumpkins were carved as part of the art education of the school.

NY Gov. David Paterson and Joseph Mangano, August 2009

Joseph Mangano, director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, joined Personal and Political on October 26, 2009 for an in depth interview on Strontium-90, Baby Teeth, among other related topics.

The interview covered the recent release of a preliminary report showing that the relationship between the amount of Strontium-90 in baby teeth (isotope released into the environment by above ground nuclear testing in Nevada in the 1950s and 1960s) and death from cancer later in life need to be studied thoroughly, and haven’t yet been.

Resources:

• Radiation and Public Health Project
• Wikipedia Page on Limited Test Ban Treaty
• Framingham Heart Study

Music:

• Sara Grace and the Suits
• DutchSound