Regenerative Ranching

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A friend of mine has a teenaged daughter who feels strongly about combatting climate change. She has become vegetarian in order to lessen her impact on the environment, for which I commend her. I’ve wanted to do that, as well, but can’t due to a particularly taxing set of allergies. Consequently, I had to find a better way to lessen my carbon footprint while still keeping myself fed. It requires animals.

Raising animals contributes to carbon sequestration if we do it the right way. In fact, animals are the best way to strengthen soils and prevent desertification of arid grasslands. It’s no mistake that big herbivores have ranged the land in large numbers for millions of years. It’s only when we, as humans, started changing the habits of these animals, limiting their movements, concentrating their numbers or even removing them altogether, that the soil deteriorated. Careful grazing helps grasses become more robust through the distributed fertilization of the soil by livestock. We can’t leave animals completely out of farming. We need them to build the fecundity of the land under our feet.

Meredith Ellis, at G Bar C Ranch, explains how this is done much better than I ever could.

It’s time to listen to the scientists, the farmers and the ranchers who understand how these processes work. Let’s get back to making our soils strong again so that we can adapt and fight climate change.

Why I Wear Farm Dresses

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I have a favorite picture on my computer desktop. It shows an Amish girl of about 15 driving a team of 12 draft horses, 12 tons of horse power, plowing a large field. She’s in a dress, of course. She’s poised and calm, as she’s doing what can be considered a precision job. It’s an amazing image.

There is a reason why it strikes me so strongly. It goes against a popular opinion that was constantly voiced when I was growing up. “If women work, they will lose their femininity.” That was the chorus I heard when the Equal Rights Amendment was being argued in the 70s. Women were working outside the home in large numbers for the first time, and it had the establishment scared. I didn’t understand their logic, but I also couldn’t find any good examples of women in charge of something.

That is, until Star Trek. Lt. Nyota Uhura was a beautiful, feminine woman who could decipher garbled messages, rewire a communications board within 5 minutes, and command the ship when others were away, getting kidnapped or zapped or whatever. She became my personal hero because her character flew in the face of the suggested (or even overt) misogyny that work was inappropriate for women. She is the reason I am in technical communications.

For my friends who are black, her representation was crucial for different reasons. They were finally seeing black people on television at least half as much as much as they saw them in real life. Now, I work in IT, more and more, with people from multiple races, ethnicities and backgrounds. It all started with Nichelle Nichols.

Okay, time to feed the horses. I think a colorful, rayon, tropical print, sleeveless, summer dress will do nicely.

Geography and Culture: The Case for Local Ownership of ISPs

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Every year, my extended family has a reunion attended by upwards of 70 of my closest cousins. (My grandfather came from a family of 13 kids.) It takes place deep in the heart of Appalachia, where 3 states converge. The land there is a constant undulation of hills and hollows that spread in every direction. The roads split and converge as they roll over the hills, leaving you completely lost. Most of the people who live here have done so since the Revolution.

One thing that doesn’t exist here is broadband. With houses spread out across farmland and mountains cutting each tiny hamlet off from the next, the inability to derive any profit from broadband connections has kept the larger ISPs away from the area. Yet, the need is here is profound. Contrary to popular belief, rural people want access to the wider world through technology. They know that without it, they will fall more economically behind than they already are.

Often, larger companies will go into rural areas, charging high prices, and will expect the same response they receive from city or suburb dwellers – instant adoption. For some, that might happen, but for many, the prices are just too high for them to perceive any benefits from broadband. Additionally, the services large ISPs provide just aren’t right to meet the needs of rural people or their businesses. Here are a few examples:

  • Bringing broadband lines to the edge of the property, instead of directly to the farm buildings, which are a mile or more inside a 2000 acre farm.
  • Building cell towers on sacred sites within a reservation, because they did not bother checking with the tribe before starting the work.
  • Charging entirely too much for internet business services for stores that are so small, they may sell shoes, and hairspray, as well as sharpen saw blades.

When a municipality, especially one that is administered by the very people who need broadband service, decides to provide that service, they go into the process understanding local needs. They have a grasp on what the local economy is like and can, in many ways, better anticipate both the mechanical and social problems that may come from such a big change to the community.

Municipal Broadband doesn’t mean that the government owns and runs the system, however. Many towns have created a private entity or a public-private partnership that owns and runs the utility. In Eureka, Montana, the local ISP provides free wireless broadband to the downtown area and both phone and internet service, for a reasonable fee, to the rest of the region. It’s a solvent private company that, because it is based locally, provides better service than the big companies can.

Powell, Wyoming created a public-private partnership, where they obtained numerous agreements with public entities, such as hospitals, libraries and schools, and private companies, such as John Deere, to establish a customer base before work even started. They turned those agreements into both publicly issued bonds and private equity investments to support the ISP infrastructure. (The John Deere dealership even moved into town in order to be closer to the ISP.) A better description of the project and determination of its effects can be found in an assessment provided by the Powell Tribune. One thing they noted is that if this project hadn’t happened, there would still be no broadband in the region.

That’s really the crux of the matter. Unless local municipalities and businesses start their own initiatives, broadband will never reach rural America. This means higher costs for our raw materials: foods, timber, minerals, and water. They all come from the countryside. In rural America, it’s worth it to support locally-owned, municipal internet services. Now, we just need the states to stop blocking municipal broadband.

Indigenous Tech

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Just a note before I jump into this post: I am not Indigenous. However, I believe that it is important that native peoples in the United States have the same access to the internet that most of the rest of us currently have.

In her brilliant book Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet across Indian Country, Marisa Elena Duarte postulates that as Indigenous people bring broadband to their native lands, they are going to change how technology is built, used and understood:

“… network backbones inspire compelling visions about the potential of digital technologies in Indian Country. It is while we are imagining those visions — talking about them, investing in them, designing pilot projects and start-ups, creating new aesthetic practices, wiring our government buildings and hosting web pages — that we must pay attention to what we are experiencing and thinking as we weave digital practices as Native peoples into our lives. Digital technology projects function in some sense like a mirror, reflecting back at us what we expect them to help us overcome, with the systems we design revealing our own methods for classifying, categorizing, and making sense of data and information. Through our uses of digital systems as Indigenous peoples, they become embedded with what we believe to be our Indigenous values.”

Essentially, as people become connected through digital means, those structures start to reflect the cultural knowledge and values of those participants. It starts to change how technology is used by us. As many native cultures have a deep understanding of long-term systemic change, they can see and adapt to change, sometimes, better than the Western culture surrounding them. A case in point is the Tribal Vulnerability Assessment Resources program, created by the University of Washington and 50 Native tribes. It espouses not only Western approaches to adapt to climate change but Indigenous ones as well.

This program helps tribes, whether they participated in its creation or not, access coordinated big data about climate change in their areas. It cuts nearly three years of research off of the planning time it takes to formulate an approach and a plan to deal with the changes that, we now know, are coming. This, along with the early understanding of climate change most tribes experience as they’ve watched changes on their land, may put them at the forefront of adapting to a changing world. (You can read more about this program in Hakai Magazine.)

Climate change may also drive greater adoption of broadband and mobile technologies throughout rural places, as people become more aware of needed instant information when disasters happen. The Camp Fire last summer showed this in sharp relief, when it was found that Verizon was, by default, throttling the data access of heavy users. Those users were the firefighters trying to save lives. Needless to say, the government of California was not happy about this. They are already bringing new systems online to counteract this possibility in the future.

As cultures, ancient or otherwise, start communicating through digital devices, it’s changing how all of our technological systems are being used. Another example of this is the explosion of genealogical research being done by lay people all over the world. I’ve seen this first hand, connecting with a history that I didn’t realize I was part of. I’ve found cousins I didn’t realize I had and, this next year, I plan to visit the site where my earliest ancestor was buried back in the 1400s. Without broadband, and the resources available to me because of it, I never would have learned any of this. It’s changed how I view my place in the world and, even, who I am.

This connectivity is giving people new ways to understand themselves, their own histories, and how they integrate with others. It’s also allowing them to influence the online world with different ideas. It’s crucial that we bring broadband to our rural places – all of them – especially Indian Country. Not only is it economically imperative, but could give us a fighting chance in a quickly changing world.

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

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When winter really hits the Pacific Northwest, there is no help for it, but to stay home, stay cozy, and watch it snow. You know what that means in my little universe? Yes, that’s right: Science Fiction Fest!!!

I usually won’t watch a movie unless it involves a spaceship. (Okay, sometimes an elf will do, but that’s just because of Tolkien.) So, today, I started with the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery. In it I discovered the most enlightening conversation. It comes from Saru, who comes from a new and highly empathic species.

“I would say my life began when I was accorded refugee status by Starfleet. While being processed at Star Base 7, I saw for the first time lifeforms from across the universe, some with less than I had. Yet, with a dream of something better. I listened. Every story I heard created a space inside me to feel more, to love more. I joined Starfleet to help those in need the way I was helped.”

I have, in the past, worked alongside a number of people who came here as refugees. Some had terrible stories that they told to me as I packed boxes or answered phones beside them. I learned so much from them: how to survive, how to adapt to unusual circumstances, but mostly about the amazing capacity we all have for love, for empathy and for compassion. They were the ones who were the most caring, even after suffering some terrible hardships.

Every story I heard created a space inside me to feel more, to love more. That’s why we need the diversity that has been created by our immigrant past and should still inform our present. It increases our ability to be compassionate and to begin to really understand each other. At least, that’s been my experience.

Consequences, Intended or Otherwise

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All politics aside, the fact remains that the trade war implemented by our federal government is having a disastrous effect on agricultural exports.

Our $14B in annual soybean sales to China has quickly fallen to $0 as of November of 2018. They’re now buying their soy from Brazil. With the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement going into effect today, our ability to sell beef, pork, wheat and soy to Japan is going to be hampered due to trade discounts of 12% to 28%, which other countries will have, but we won’t.

So, what happens to the farmers, wholesalers, transportation operators, marketers, etcetera, who grow, process, move and sell these commodities? What does this mean for farmers who are already financially stressed?  Will we see another wave of family farms and rural businesses going bankrupt? Wil farmland go fallow and get swallowed up for other purposes? How long before the damage becomes a permanent drop in our ability to export agricultural products?

The government shutdown is not helping. It’s here at a time when most farmers are trying to plan and budget for the whole of next year. Financing for farmers is usually determined right now, but the USDA is closed for business and no one knows when it will open again.

Once the lack of exports and governmental assistance strains our agriculture system, how does that effect our domestic food sales? Will farmers be able to switch to other markets or will the financial strain be too great? How can farmers plan for next year when they don’t know what is going to happen next week?

There are just too many unknowns at this point. In this environment, how do farmers become more insulated from these market whims? Can we bring back a more local-based farm economy? What would that require: local processing, new distribution methods, new venues for retail? What crops would work best for this? How will climate change figure into all these other changes?

There are too many questions and too few answers right now.

Feb. 23, 2019 – Here’s a quick addendum to this post:

While agriculture bankruptcy rates across the US have remained steady, farms who regularly export to other countries are feeling the squeeze of our current tariffs. Bankruptcies across the upper Midwest have doubled since last year and are expected to skyrocket this year. See the Star Tribune’s reporting on this.

Who knew?

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In 2010, the family of Gene Roddenberry started a foundation to help bring about the vision that he saw for the future of mankind. Each year, they grant money to non-profits that are helping to change the world, one bit at a time. This year, it’s particularly interesting that they have concentrated their efforts in the areas of agriculture and women’s rights and education. Who knew that food and education could bring about a future of egalitarianism? (Apparently, Gene did.)

2018 Roddenberry Prize Awardees

Case Study

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Sometimes, I talk about using low tech and high tech together to create more sustainable food systems. What do I mean by this? The best illustration I’ve seen is a case study detailing one man’s use of both. See what you think: https://news.microsoft.com/features/global-garden-how-one-mans-vision-to-feed-his-family-blossomed-into-an-international-effort/?ocid=lock

Adventures in Infrastructure

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I live in the country, but work in the city, one with the second or third worst traffic (depending on who you ask) in the United States. The stop-and-go traffic is more than annoying. It’s soul-sucking and dangerous to one’s health.

The company I work for moved their offices to a place nearer to the heart of the city. This means that it is much more difficult to reach by car, adding a ridiculous amount of time to my daily grind of a commute. When they announced this move, I flung myself into research mode, determined that I was going to find a functional alternative to driving. This office move placed me near the Amtrak train station and to some Link Light Rail stops. Hmmm, could I potentially take an Amtrak train to work each day, right from my little town? No other service comes this far north.

Hidden on the Amtrak site is a multi-ticket option where you can purchase a monthly pass for a fairly decent price. It takes some real work to find it, though. My persistence was rewarded. “So”, I thought, “let’s give this a try”.

It’s now been nearly three months of taking the train into downtown for my daily commute. It only travels once a day, so, I can’t miss it. If I do, I’m stuck with driving or trying to take a bus further south. Fortunately, there’s only been one time that I missed it in the morning, when there was a multi-car accident on the bridge getting me off the island. I just couldn’t reach the train station in time. It forced me to drive that day and I hated it.

The advantages of train travel are numerous. My stress levels are nearly non-existent. Once I’m on that platform, I’m all smiles. I board the train and find an expansive seat. There is a bistro for coffee and food, restrooms for those so burdened, and free wi-fi (okay, not terribly powerful broadband, but free) for any working and edification needs. (Don’t tell the boss that I’m leveling up on any of my games, though.) The porters are incredibly good at what they do, too. They are friendly, engaging, and quite insistent that you make your stop. The Amtrak app works very well, letting you check the time of your train, buy tickets, or research routes.

There are drawbacks, however. Most of them concern the lack of improvements to infrastructure. Trains still run at the same speed they did in 1966 and are substantially slower than trains in most of the developed world. There are single tracks on most of the journey, carrying freight and passengers both directions. This means a number of delays while trains wait on sidings for traffic to pass. The older train cars, which are most of them, are in need of some repair.

It’s one of those items in the federal budget that isn’t very expensive. Train travel could be massively improved if there were just a bit more money injected into our rail system. The Amtrak budget, over the years, has been squeezed to death. In the 70s and 80s, the government tried to eliminate Amtrak, but train travel is just too popular. My train is often full to capacity.

Over the past 10 years, smaller towns have started building their own train stations along the existing tracks, petitioning Amtrak to stop there. That’s how my town obtained a stop. It’s been a significant benefit to the local area, especially as the traffic south of us has become nearly impassable. A trip from here to Portland should be about 4 hours but takes up to 9 because of the traffic. The train gets me there in about 5, including a nice lunch, restrooms and wi-fi. Why not expand this route and eliminate some of the awful traffic on I-5?

So, it isn’t just our broadband that needs to reach rural America. Our transportation infrastructure needs help, too.

Fighting Fake News

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Before I was up to my elbows in information technology, I was a journalist, with a degree and everything. Those journalistic techniques, standards and values stuck with me, even as I ventured into other areas of endeavor. You tell the facts. That’s the basics. This is why fighting fake news is so important to me and, really, it should concern you, too.

Fake news doesn’t come from only one political viewpoint, nor does it care about who it hurts, left, right or center. It’s propagated to influence your actions and profit those who create and disseminate it. Everyone has forwarded a sensational post on social media. It’s just too easy to do.

“When facts are false, decisions are wrong.” That’s the bottom line. Most fake news is not a mistake. It’s a deliberate effort to manipulate us. It’s propaganda. It’s meant to divide us, make us disbelieve true facts, and to have us behave in ways that benefit the perpetrators. We now know, from many reliable sources, that fake news heavily influenced our last general election. It’s poised to do the same with our upcoming mid-term election if we let it.

There are also campaigns to make us not act in our own best interest. Someone is benefitting from it, certainly, and discovering who that is will help us be better informed about these issues.

Let’s start with some techniques to identify potential fake new:

  • It is highly dramatic, outrageous, or makes you react strongly.
  • It fits perfectly with your world view. Seldom do real facts fit with someone’s opinion 100% of the time.
  • It’s from a source you don’t know or that has a highly patriotic-sounding name.
  • It is from only one source. No other news organization has published it.
  • The article shows a lack of understanding of the language. Yes, bad grammar and misspellings usually mean that the article isn’t correct either.
  • The sites or articles aren’t quite right for the culture. That usually means that someone foreign is trying to imitate us.

Once you suspect that something might be fake, how can you find out for sure?

  • Check on a site that parses fake news, such as Snopes.com or StopFake.org. They are journalists who do the research to see if articles, pictures or videos are indeed true.
  • Check with other, reliable news sources, ones who have fact-checkers and an editing staff, to see if this news item is being reported. If not, it’s probably fake.
  • Do a google-image search for pictures that may have been faked. If you see lots of variations of it, then it’s been doctored. Look for the oldest version, to see what it originally was. Many times, the pictures are correct, but the descriptions are altered. (Eagles players who knelt to pray before a game were relabeled as kneeling during the anthem. Naughty Fox News!)
  • For videos, search for them on YouTube to see where they originated. Fake ones may have several versions or completely different attributions than are reported in the news article.

To be a truly informed person, who knows the facts, you need to do your own research. There are many vested interests out there who are banking on an uninformed populace. Don’t be part of that. How do you become better informed?

  • View news from reliable, fact-checked sources, such as the BBC, Reuters, CBC, AP, scientific journals, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or any other creditable newspaper. Local news is also more creditable and in-depth than much of our national news. (There are a few exceptions, namely, some nationally owned (Sinclair) TV stations.) Don’t use social media as your only source.
  • Stop passing fake news around. Fact-check it. I can’t stress this enough.
  • Go have discussions, face-to-face, with others who are different than you. You’ll find that our conservative/liberal differences are amazingly unimportant. We all want to live our lives in peace, with a bit of security, and we all love our children. Those fundamentals just never change.
  • Travel. Get outside the United States and see why the world has a very different opinion of us than we do. You’ll be amazed.

The next time you see some meme about a pedophile ring in the back of a pizzeria (someone got arrested for that one) or boy scouts burning the flag (um…it’s what you’re supposed to do to properly dispose of them, according to flag etiquette), check yourself and check your sources. Otherwise, I’m just going to slap you on the wrist for propagating propaganda. You know I’ll do it.

Of course, if you want to learn something from the fake news creators, there’s always the “Russia Propaganda Guide to Stealing Your Roommate’s Burrito“.