Archive for the 'Books' Category

Slave-picked Tomatoes?

Published on August 13, 2011 in Books and News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

A cover story ran in our local alt-weekly last month about a shocking state of affairs – the tomatoes supplied to much of the eastern United States, and the dark pit that is the Tomato-growing industry in Florida.

The article is an interview with Barry Eastbrook, the author of a book on the subject called Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit.

Here are some choice quotes from “Strange Fruit: An interview with Barry Eastbrook on the high cost of cheap tomatoes” by Megan Peck, Orlando Weekly, July 28:

they inject methyl bromide, which is a fumigant which kills every living organism in the soil – every germ, every bug, every bacteria. [...] After a couple of weeks, when the soil is sterile – dead – they then poke holes in the plastic and put seedlings in.

There is also a fair deal about the immigration status, living conditions, and low wages of the workers who pick the fruit, at one point claiming that “it’s abject slavery”:

Our governor, Rick Scott, ran on a hard-line anti-immigration stance. He’s since taken heat for backing down. Might this have anything to do with agriculture companies and migrant workers?

He may have taken a look across the border at what’s happening in Georgia. Florida’s agricultural sector is huge. [In Georgia] you have a situation where they had enacted one of these crazy laws, and right now there’s $300 million lost so far, with crops rotting in the fields because the workers simply – well, they are nothing if not migrant.

Is there anything we can do to get around this evil?

The closer your tomato is raised to your kitchen counter, the better it’s going to be. It’s not as easy in Florida, but there are small farms … [or] grow your own tomatoes. When fresh, good tomatoes are available, make pasta sauces and freeze them.

For more information, read the full interview, or pick up a copy of Barry’s book.

Small Spaces means a Small Footprint

Published on August 8, 2011 in Books, Fun Stuff and Video. 0 Comments
  • A 78 square foot apartment in the heart of Manhattan

    The best part by far is the bed – storage, a couch, a chalkboard and visually appealing as well.
  • A Hong Kong apartment with movable walls and 24 unique configurations

    I’m sure this space cost a lot more to build out than the one in Manhattan, but it really leaves nothing out as far as I could tell.
  • A house that can fit on a flat bed trailer. Now for sale!

    See also: The Small House Book by Jay Shafer, the man who designs and builds these tiny houses.
  • I also want to mention Jenine Alexander’s Tiny House Blog which is more focused on found materials and salvaged parts.
  • Resource Furniture kicks out some awesome multi-use “transformer” furniture.

    My favorite is the table, called the Goliath.
  • Here is a TEDx video from Portland with Dee Williams, who lives in a tiny house, and gives us some great reasons why one might want to do the same.
  • Venture into the land of prefabricated houses with this retro number:
  • Then it just gets a little ridiculous

Have you got better ideas? Better links? Better videos? Books? Let me know.

Thanks to *faircompanies, who made many of these awesome and inspirational videos.

Bill Bellevilles: Salvaging the Real Florida

Published on March 26, 2011 in Books. 0 Comments

The latest Orlando Weekly featured a piece on a local author’s collection of essays called Salvaging the Real Florida: Lost and Found in the State of Dreams. No matter how many times one might complain about such a thing, newspaper websites never seem to include links in their articles… but I digress.

I’m glad to see a book whose mission is conservation that is not a hippie call-to-action rag – that would only be read by one kind of audience. With any luck, the late emphasis on “buy local”, and “slow money” will end up getting books like this – made in Florida, about Florida – some much needed attention and have the after-effect of opening some minds in the process.

According to the Weekly’s Katie Westfall in her article “Nature’s Edge”:

“At some point, every reasonable adult has to ask that question: How do we keep these things functioning the way they were always meant to function?” Belleville asks during a phone interview. In “What if the Shaman is a Snail,” he examines how the tiny mollusks are a barometer for water health. He tells us there are some snail species that congregate around certain springs in Florida that aren’t found anywhere else in the world. Belleville has his own collection of goldenhorn marissa snails that he’s found during his travels, and he watches them in his home aquarium to see what they do. By the end of the essay, we learn that the little guys have a tough time outrunning the pollution that spills out of storm drains or the pesticides and fertilizers that seep into their domain. We’re told that “future Floridians will pay for the contemporary sins of our water-sucking developers and their political toadies.”

Yes. More of that. Floridians need to learn when to “eat their vegetables” like good little citizens of Earth.

I guess Belleville has been at this longer than me, because he (correctly) points out that my hope of people gainins new perspective is not a one-step process:

“Regardless of how well a person writes or describes a place, I don’t think that in itself ­- that narrative, that ability to describe a place – is not going to change a person’s mind,” Bellville says. “I think what it can do, in the best of worlds, is to have that person want to go outside and want to have ?an experience.”

I have been on a nighttime bio-luminescent kayak tour in Titusville, one of the places mentioned in the Weekly article. It is one of the most breathtaking things I have ever seen in Florida, and I tell as many people as I can about it. It’s difficult to put into words, and even more difficult to capture on film or video, so I’m glad I can now refer them to this book.