I purchased The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Drying Food plus 398 Recipes including Making Jerky, Fruit Leather & Just-Add-Water Meals by Tammy Gangloff.
Seriously. That's the long-winded title of the book. Click on the above hyper link, it's faster. Her editor should be fired for allowing that kind of title. The good news is the title is really the only bad thing about this book.
I am a relative newbie to dehydrating. A friend introduced me to Tammy's YouTube channel: dehydrate2store. Watching her plethora of videos gave me the confidence to try. I obtained a round dehydrator for free, and saved up money to buy a 4 tray Excalibur dehydrator. <== That hyperlink will take you to a 4 tray which costs about $99. I am glad that I have it (certainly, it is a better purchase than spending $60-80 on a round one for too many reasons to mention), but I wish I had saved up a little more and bought a 9 tray Excalibur <== for $189. Eventually perhaps I will, but I figure: better to be prepping now, than saving up to prep later.
Because I bought my dehydrator used, last year I purchased Excalibur's cookbook: Preserve It Naturally, which costs about $24. I'm not sorry I did, because it helped me understand how to use my Excalibur, but I have to say a year later, I would buy Tammy's vs. Preserve it. Both Tammy's and the Preserve It book presume you have an Excalibur dehydrator...evidenced by the "dehydrate at this temperature" settings in each ingredient. If you have one of those super cheap round ones like I do, this may be frustrating, because we only have "one" setting: full blast. All it really means is you're going to be done faster, lol. Tammy says it's impossible to over dry something, and she's the expert, so I'll take her word for it.
The only other misnomer about Tammy's book is the "398 recipes" part. It's true, there are 398 "recipes," but in my world, it's hard to call "combine these 5 herb ingredients add oil to make X salad dressing..." a recipe, although by definition it is technically true. Still the "true recipes" portion of the book begins about halfway through the 343 page book, so it does include quite a plethora of "true" recipes for meals, side dishes, soups, salads etc. Someone asked me if the "recipes" in the book were different than on her website. I don't know, and frankly, for $16, I prefer a book all in one place, than copying and pasting and having it un-organized in a binder. YMMV.
Some experienced dehydrators feel they don't need the "recipes" part. As a newbie dehydrater, I strongly disagree. That recipe portion of the book is the reason I bought it. I'm going further this year and dehydrating a (finished product) quart of every vegetable and fruit ingredient listed in her book. There are 96 of them by the way, not including herbs. Email me (pcdirector@gmail.com) if you want the list. My thought is: if I dehydrate every ingredient, then when I go to make the recipes, beyond bulking up my food storage, I will actually have the ingredients on hand.
Eventually I will be taking the some of the recipes and sizing them down to cook Grid Down! in a Thermos (title of my new work-in-progress book-just saying.) (Can you tell I'm a bit of an addict when it comes to food storage and prepping?) Post-move, I plan to build shelving out of 1" x 6"s to store all the dehydrated quarts. In alphabetical order. Neatly arranged. (Further evidence that I am a nerd.)
It's because I look at dehydrating as a prepper that I raise an eyebrow at some of Tammy's recommendations. This largely centers around her "cream of" type recipes. She takes the ingredients, rehydrates/cooks them, then uses an immersion blender to puree them. ME, I would take the ingredients, cook them, puree them, then dehydrate the puree so that in a grid down situation, all you have to do is add hot water and go. She advocates her method when it comes to pureed soups repeatedly. I can't understand why.
At $16, The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook is a must have. In true nerd fashion, I read it (not skimmed, read it, including all the recipes) cover to cover in 2 days. I loved being taught how to make crackers, how to dry herbs for teas, leathers (who knew corn syrup was a secret ingredient to pliability?), drying meats and fish, and combining dehydrated ingredients into main courses. I particularly value that it is written to the beginner to mid-level dehydrater, but I think even the most experienced dehydrater will find something of value. Easy to read, easy to understand, by the time you have read it cover to cover, you will catch the vision of dehydrating food to store. I really wish I hadn't missed the "pumpkin season:" sure would be nice to have a quart of dehydrated pumpkin powder to make pumpkin pie in a snap.
As a prepper, this book gives me the confidence to begin or add to my food storage & skills. I know I can build an off grid dehydrator (she doesn't teach this in her book) and have yet another way to preserve food. I've always planned on using my quart pasta sauce jars from re-invented Classico or La Romanella to store my dehydrated items, making the cost of storage virtually free. Tammy advocates the use of oxygen absorbers as a sealant. I can't afford them, they're not reusable, so I'm going to be sealing them with my handheld Reynolds (or Foodsaver) sealer, and Food Saver's Regular Mouth and Wide Mouth jar sealers, the lids to which can be reused indefinitely. My video demonstrating using the handheld to store food can be found here: http://youtu.be/uRRdpbQzqqE?list=UUcBqcPCg2yBUou3KRvOhloA.
The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook by Tammy Gangloff is likely one of the best books on dehydrating you'll ever purchase. It could well be the only book on dehydrating you will need to purchase, it's that good.
Stay tuned!
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Friday, December 12, 2014
Grid Down! Cooking Baked Potato Soup without Fuel
First in a series of recipes, demos and ideas of cooking dehydrated food (storage) with little or no fuel!
Very excited to be posting this series, hoping to blog and post one a week over the next year.
As you know, I am a huge fan of freeze dried food storage for the simple fact that it is "boil water and go" food storage. While I like dehydrated food in my food storage, I've always been bothered that dehydrated food takes on average, 10-15 minutes of constant cooking time over heat. That's a lot of fuel you'll need to burn in a grid down situation!
WELL, I am beyond excited to tell you that I have come up with a way to cook normal, dehydrated food storage in a grid down situation with very little fuel--in fact it only takes as much fuel as you need to boil water. In a Kelly Kettle, you can boil water in about 3 minutes, using very little fuel. I cheated in this particular video, and boiled water on a stove, sorry!
This particular demo takes commercially prepared, non-precooked dehydrated food (pre-cooked dehydrated food will have a different re-'cooking' time) and in 30-45 minutes you can have mouth watering, hot, fresh tasting, gourmet food in a grid down situation.
The secret to my success?
Cooking in a Thermos! Not keeping it warm in a thermos. COOKING in a thermos. Watch the video below for more, and stay tuned for many more exciting cooking ideas using dehydrated food storage and the trusty metal thermos.
By the way: you should (but not absolutely) "pre-heat" your thermos for best results. This can be accomplished by filling the thermos about 1/3 to 1/2 way full with boiling water (do NOT secure the cap on top at this stage) and let sit for about 5 minutes, while you are reboiling more water for the actual meal (in a Kelly Kettle this is lightning fast). Use that hot but now slightly cooled initial water to make hot chocolate, or store it for later.
Enjoy! (You'll need to go to this YT hyperlink to get the link information mentioned at the end of the video. Do I look tech savvy??? NO!!!) http://youtu.be/49BOAwDqlKk
Very excited to be posting this series, hoping to blog and post one a week over the next year.
As you know, I am a huge fan of freeze dried food storage for the simple fact that it is "boil water and go" food storage. While I like dehydrated food in my food storage, I've always been bothered that dehydrated food takes on average, 10-15 minutes of constant cooking time over heat. That's a lot of fuel you'll need to burn in a grid down situation!
WELL, I am beyond excited to tell you that I have come up with a way to cook normal, dehydrated food storage in a grid down situation with very little fuel--in fact it only takes as much fuel as you need to boil water. In a Kelly Kettle, you can boil water in about 3 minutes, using very little fuel. I cheated in this particular video, and boiled water on a stove, sorry!
This particular demo takes commercially prepared, non-precooked dehydrated food (pre-cooked dehydrated food will have a different re-'cooking' time) and in 30-45 minutes you can have mouth watering, hot, fresh tasting, gourmet food in a grid down situation.
The secret to my success?
Cooking in a Thermos! Not keeping it warm in a thermos. COOKING in a thermos. Watch the video below for more, and stay tuned for many more exciting cooking ideas using dehydrated food storage and the trusty metal thermos.
By the way: you should (but not absolutely) "pre-heat" your thermos for best results. This can be accomplished by filling the thermos about 1/3 to 1/2 way full with boiling water (do NOT secure the cap on top at this stage) and let sit for about 5 minutes, while you are reboiling more water for the actual meal (in a Kelly Kettle this is lightning fast). Use that hot but now slightly cooled initial water to make hot chocolate, or store it for later.
Enjoy! (You'll need to go to this YT hyperlink to get the link information mentioned at the end of the video. Do I look tech savvy??? NO!!!) http://youtu.be/49BOAwDqlKk
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Making Money Online (aka Working from Home)
One way is to Take Surveys from Home (for pay.)
At the risk of sounding like a commercial, please do yourself the favor of reading through the whole blogpost before you roll your eyes <grin.>
About a year ago (it was actually the end of October, first of November last year), an acquaintance of mine and I from the prepping world were talking about what he does for a living, since he works from home and actually makes enough to support his family. He started off building websites for people (beyond my technical capabilities). Then he branched out into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for those websites on retainer, which is, over time, where the bulk of his income was coming from.
I didn't know what that was, so we talked a bit about it. Summary version is: when you search for a product, most of the time you type in something like "dog kennels in Westerville." Google (or Bing etc.) gives you results based on those words. In Google's case (I detest Bing), it can give you pages and pages. 99% of the time you will only look on the first or second page (out of 1000s) of results. So what he did is (manually) drove traffic (search engine optimization) so that his clients' sites came up on the first page when you typed in (example) "dog kennels in Westerville."
Sigh. I'm like, way beyond my abilities. Then David said, "but then I found this really cool product which more or less automates SEO and allows me to set up my own websites and passively earn income." (Scooby questioning sound heard here=>) "Rrruuhh?" Ok. He now had my attention. He uses a product called Sniper to build websites on the Wordpress (the blog people) platform. As he built more and more of them, he gradually decreased his SEO business (although he used the Sniper system to automate his clients' sites).
I asked if it was hard to do (cuz after all, he's a techie, and I'm not). He said no, even someone like "me" could do it (being a nice guy, he did not say dumb bunny. I would have.) So I went to the Sniper site, watched the promo video (the creator George, loves to hear himself talk, fair warning), and thought, you know? I can do this. And at $47, it wasn't a huge risk.
I am not a super blogger, but my DH is. So I figured between the two of us (and him being unemployed) we could really make a go of this. I implemented only a miniscule amount of what George teaches in his videos, frankly, because I am not a tech person, and I wanted to see if it was "real" before I invested a lot of time (there's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.) But then DH found a "real job" so he didn't "have time" to help me, so I was back to my own devices.
The first month I made $124. I'd like to lie and tell you I made thousands. And you know, maybe if I'd done EVERYTHING from soup to nuts, the way I was supposed to, I would have. I'd like to tell you that my enthusiasm for the fact that his system works, even if you only implement a tiny bit of it, caused me to get off my lazy rear end and invest the time into training and learning how to develop passive sites, since on average, the little bit I did brought in $50 a month.
But I can't. Because I am a lazy sloth. But I'm repenting. I've been babysitting this past year and averaging about $600-800 a month babysitting; we've needed the money and I'm grateful. But that's working about 20 hours a week. The other day, a lightbulb went on. If I'd spent 20 hours a week really committing to building sites using George's system, I probably wouldn't need to be doing childcare. So I'm changing my ways.
And sharing my process with you. He's actually upgraded the process, and now there's a "copy me" training system in addition to the general system where he shows you how to build passive sites step by step. That's another $97, but if you are a dumb bunny (my words) like me, that's pretty invaluable. So if you've got 20 minutes (no really. 20 minutes. Like I said...the boy loves to hear himself talk), check out the => Sniper system. It really does work, and this year, I'm committed to making it work for me.
Thanks for letting me share.
At the risk of sounding like a commercial, please do yourself the favor of reading through the whole blogpost before you roll your eyes <grin.>
About a year ago (it was actually the end of October, first of November last year), an acquaintance of mine and I from the prepping world were talking about what he does for a living, since he works from home and actually makes enough to support his family. He started off building websites for people (beyond my technical capabilities). Then he branched out into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for those websites on retainer, which is, over time, where the bulk of his income was coming from.
I didn't know what that was, so we talked a bit about it. Summary version is: when you search for a product, most of the time you type in something like "dog kennels in Westerville." Google (or Bing etc.) gives you results based on those words. In Google's case (I detest Bing), it can give you pages and pages. 99% of the time you will only look on the first or second page (out of 1000s) of results. So what he did is (manually) drove traffic (search engine optimization) so that his clients' sites came up on the first page when you typed in (example) "dog kennels in Westerville."
Sigh. I'm like, way beyond my abilities. Then David said, "but then I found this really cool product which more or less automates SEO and allows me to set up my own websites and passively earn income." (Scooby questioning sound heard here=>) "Rrruuhh?" Ok. He now had my attention. He uses a product called Sniper to build websites on the Wordpress (the blog people) platform. As he built more and more of them, he gradually decreased his SEO business (although he used the Sniper system to automate his clients' sites).
I asked if it was hard to do (cuz after all, he's a techie, and I'm not). He said no, even someone like "me" could do it (being a nice guy, he did not say dumb bunny. I would have.) So I went to the Sniper site, watched the promo video (the creator George, loves to hear himself talk, fair warning), and thought, you know? I can do this. And at $47, it wasn't a huge risk.
I am not a super blogger, but my DH is. So I figured between the two of us (and him being unemployed) we could really make a go of this. I implemented only a miniscule amount of what George teaches in his videos, frankly, because I am not a tech person, and I wanted to see if it was "real" before I invested a lot of time (there's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.) But then DH found a "real job" so he didn't "have time" to help me, so I was back to my own devices.
The first month I made $124. I'd like to lie and tell you I made thousands. And you know, maybe if I'd done EVERYTHING from soup to nuts, the way I was supposed to, I would have. I'd like to tell you that my enthusiasm for the fact that his system works, even if you only implement a tiny bit of it, caused me to get off my lazy rear end and invest the time into training and learning how to develop passive sites, since on average, the little bit I did brought in $50 a month.
But I can't. Because I am a lazy sloth. But I'm repenting. I've been babysitting this past year and averaging about $600-800 a month babysitting; we've needed the money and I'm grateful. But that's working about 20 hours a week. The other day, a lightbulb went on. If I'd spent 20 hours a week really committing to building sites using George's system, I probably wouldn't need to be doing childcare. So I'm changing my ways.
And sharing my process with you. He's actually upgraded the process, and now there's a "copy me" training system in addition to the general system where he shows you how to build passive sites step by step. That's another $97, but if you are a dumb bunny (my words) like me, that's pretty invaluable. So if you've got 20 minutes (no really. 20 minutes. Like I said...the boy loves to hear himself talk), check out the => Sniper system. It really does work, and this year, I'm committed to making it work for me.
Thanks for letting me share.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Throw Out 50 Things....
....Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life :)
I need to stop feeling guilty that I may end up throwing stuff in the trash versus "donating" it to charity, or "freecycling" it away.
That's the title of the book by life coach Gail Blanke: Throw Out 50 Things, Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life.
Today I threw out virtually all the paperwork in an old file cabinet, and am trying to freecycle out the file cabinet itself (any takers?)
I cleared out all the trash in the Saturn so that I can get rid of it tomorrow.
I freecycled out a baseball hitting stick and a box of empty pasta jars.
Tomorrow I'm going to clear out a bunch more and just TOSS IT. I know I've been saying this for almost a year. I start. I stop. I start. I stop. I whine. I feel sorry for myself. But I am NOT going to move this stuff with me. Landlord is back from out of state. He'll be here probably by the end of the week to do "an inspection." It is ever present in my mind that we are, at any time, 60 days away from eviction depending on his "mood."
I should have been chucking and recycling a trash can full every week for at least the past three months. It's ok. I've actually got a little time the next few days. I started today. I will get rid of more tomorrow. I just need to not look at it. I need to stop belaboring the point that I'm the one who needs to do it. All of my kids offered today to "help." The problem is I don't actually know where to start (for them anyway.)
I need to stop feeling guilty that I may end up throwing stuff in the trash versus "donating" it to charity, or "freecycling" it away.
Like today, I went through that file cabinet I've been intending to clear out for a year. 99.9% of it I didn't need: old bills, credit card statements etc. Some of it, I did: old divorce papers which prove liability for my ex, pictures, some genealogy paperwork. That's not something I can hand off to someone. Tomorrow (if not tonight) I get rid of the actual file cabinet so I can use the space to store other things. I'm going to go through the kitchen tonight and tomorrow and get rid of stuff in there too. I need to not be sentimental about stuff which makes my life easier once a year.
Just saying. Wish me luck.
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Food Storage "Black Friday" Sales
Not an all inclusive list, just some of the better deals I've found:
Mountain House buckets. These are storage buckets with 12 pouches of freeze dried food in them, two to three "meals" in each pouch. The cheapest I had found these before was about $75, they are ON SALE for $52, $57. Bucket choices include "Classic" ($57, was $80) which is 2 pouches each of beef stroganoff (our favorite!), chicken teriyaki, beef stew, lasagna with meat, noodles and chicken, and granola with blueberries; "Essential" ($52 was $80), 4 pouches each of rice and chicken, chili mac, and spaghetti, and "Breakfast" ($84 was $101) containing 4 scrambled eggs with ham, 4 scrambled eggs with bacon, 4 granola w/blueberries, 4 breakfast skillet.
I'm excited. I almost bought the Classic when I found it for $75 for my two oldest kids (ships easy, can be put in a closet etc.), so I'm thrilled to be spending about half as much. I'll buy a third (maybe a fourth while I'm at it) and restock my kids' bug out bags.
Emergency Essentials. Many items close to half off (ok, 46%) like Premium Fruit Combo was $210 now $120, (a #10 can each of peach, orange, pineapple, strawberry, blackberry), ASAP Silver solution was $44, now $23. Special doorbusters (1 per customer) like beef meals & vegetable pack (sale $97) resulting in 60% off!
OCFoodStorage. 40-50% off everything on their site. L-O-V-E their gourmet main meals, especially their habanero mango chili. You can actually taste the mango and you'll definitely feel the habanero. They are also going to be at the Crossroads of the West gun show in Costa Mesa California November 29th, if you are in the area.
The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook: Complete Guide to Drying Food including 398 recipes by Tammy Gangloff. You likely won't know her name, but you probably know her face: she's the Dehydrate2Store lady. I'm excited she wrote this book. I plan on growing everything in the recipe book which can be grown at home, dehydrating and storing it, and then I will not only have "food on hand" but I'll actually know what to do with it. (You know I'm cooking challenged.)
Various Dutch Ovens are on sale 50% off, Osprey backpacks (the climbing, hiking, bug out kind) 25% off.
Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator for $179 (was $250) and an Excalibur 4 tray for $104 (was $150). If you're really strapped for money and/or you're new to dehydrating and you don't want to make a huge dollar commitment, then $104 is an easy buy. But trust me: you're going to wish you'd spent the $179 and bought the 9 tray. I'm just saying. And I'm not even a constant dehydrator like some people are.
There are probably a ton more, but I've got a turkey in the oven with my name on it.
Mountain House buckets. These are storage buckets with 12 pouches of freeze dried food in them, two to three "meals" in each pouch. The cheapest I had found these before was about $75, they are ON SALE for $52, $57. Bucket choices include "Classic" ($57, was $80) which is 2 pouches each of beef stroganoff (our favorite!), chicken teriyaki, beef stew, lasagna with meat, noodles and chicken, and granola with blueberries; "Essential" ($52 was $80), 4 pouches each of rice and chicken, chili mac, and spaghetti, and "Breakfast" ($84 was $101) containing 4 scrambled eggs with ham, 4 scrambled eggs with bacon, 4 granola w/blueberries, 4 breakfast skillet.
I'm excited. I almost bought the Classic when I found it for $75 for my two oldest kids (ships easy, can be put in a closet etc.), so I'm thrilled to be spending about half as much. I'll buy a third (maybe a fourth while I'm at it) and restock my kids' bug out bags.
Emergency Essentials. Many items close to half off (ok, 46%) like Premium Fruit Combo was $210 now $120, (a #10 can each of peach, orange, pineapple, strawberry, blackberry), ASAP Silver solution was $44, now $23. Special doorbusters (1 per customer) like beef meals & vegetable pack (sale $97) resulting in 60% off!
OCFoodStorage. 40-50% off everything on their site. L-O-V-E their gourmet main meals, especially their habanero mango chili. You can actually taste the mango and you'll definitely feel the habanero. They are also going to be at the Crossroads of the West gun show in Costa Mesa California November 29th, if you are in the area.
The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook: Complete Guide to Drying Food including 398 recipes by Tammy Gangloff. You likely won't know her name, but you probably know her face: she's the Dehydrate2Store lady. I'm excited she wrote this book. I plan on growing everything in the recipe book which can be grown at home, dehydrating and storing it, and then I will not only have "food on hand" but I'll actually know what to do with it. (You know I'm cooking challenged.)
Various Dutch Ovens are on sale 50% off, Osprey backpacks (the climbing, hiking, bug out kind) 25% off.
Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator for $179 (was $250) and an Excalibur 4 tray for $104 (was $150). If you're really strapped for money and/or you're new to dehydrating and you don't want to make a huge dollar commitment, then $104 is an easy buy. But trust me: you're going to wish you'd spent the $179 and bought the 9 tray. I'm just saying. And I'm not even a constant dehydrator like some people are.
There are probably a ton more, but I've got a turkey in the oven with my name on it.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Secret Garden for Survival
I finally got around to reading Rick Austin's book: Secret Garden of Survival: How to Grow a Camouflaged Food Forest.
Reminder: I may be an above average prepper, but I am barely a dimly lit bulb when it comes to gardening. In gardening, I truly need someone to lead me, guide me and walk beside me, and almost literally, help me find the way. Having said that....
I think this a great book to add to your arsenal. My gardening results improved significantly when I incorporated the BacktoEden wood chip methodology. So I have hope that Secret Garden of Survival will yield similar results.
Rick Austin's theory is to create agricultural, mutually symbiotic "circles" called "guilds" to create 4-5 layers of food or medicinal plants in the same space (more or less) that you would grow a single tree.
His layers are the tree, then some type of vining plant (think grapes) growing up the tree, then some type of shrub (i.e., berry bushes) at the edge of the perimeter of the tree branches (think just at or outside where the leaves would drop, if you ran a curtain down from the branches), and herbs or ground cover just outside the shrub layer. One would also plant onions or something similar at the base of the tree to keep mice etc from eating the bark of a tree.
On his website, Rick has the following graphic:
I would then plant some type of vining fruit/nut plant. If I had run across this system sooner, I might have planted my grape vines under here--they're not doing anything for me out in the front yard anyway. I'm not sure from the book if I'm running my vines straight up (low hanging branch in sun on left) or running it up the trunk. This is kind of a bad set up, because in the winter my house casts shade pretty much all day the way you see it right now (which BTW, is 12:30pm when this picture was taken.)
Following this, I would plant shrubs (berry bushes) at the edge of the orange tree; then herb plants beyond that, and ground cover which would run through from the edge of the herb layer inside to the tree.
Rick's system works where he is, because he's living in the country. Most of us don't, so it's a bit harder to see how it would all work "living in the city."
My neighbor has a set up which would be virtually ideal to grow a camouflaged survival garden, so since it's cleaner and easier to visualize it with his, I borrowed it ;)
It's easy to see with George's set up, particularly if that planter was just a foot or so larger, how you could run a vining plant up that tree, plant some berry bushes toward the outer edge, some herbs and/or ground cover on the bottom, (in fact, doesn't it look like herbs/ground cover there at the base?) and just prune the tree so it doesn't get so out of control that it blocks all the sunlight.
So I can see that it would work, even in a city.
Here's what I wish the book would do. In chapter 5, he talks about what kinds of guilds you would need to plant if your "tree" was a walnut tree. He advises, since walnuts trees are toxic to many plants, to companion plant Elderberry, Mulberry, Currants, Tomatoes and Peppers, things which can thrive in a walnut's toxicity.
That's actually the only time he is specific. I am a dimly lit gardening bulb. I need more specifics! Sure, I could buy the book Carrots love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening, but that book (from what I remember) is about row gardening or at best, square foot gardening. This is a completely different way of gardening, so the same principles wouldn't necessarily apply, would they?
He infers that it will, but he is not clear as a bell on that point, at least not as clear as someone like me needs him to be. I concede that I am perhaps over thinking this. The whole point of growing this type of system, is to grow food which looks "wild" and does not scream "garden here, come ransack me." So perhaps it is not so necessary to be as rigid and specific as I am thinking I need (i.e., orange tree, grape vine, blueberry, echinacea, strawberry.) He does get a tiny bit more specific in chapter 10, but not a whole lot.
The other issue I have with this system, has more to do with my life issues. I am incredibly concrete in my thinking. I like things to visually "square up:" for reals, you would not believe my food storage all of which is squared up, labeled, categorized etc. By the middle to end of a normal gardening season when stuff is fully grown, it's all I can do not to give up--the visual "clutter" of going from nice neat rows to a jungle is almost more than I can stand. It's visually overwhelming for me.
So here's this system which is by design, intended to be visually overwhelming, so as to stay "hidden." You immediately see my problem, don't you? Which actually, when you think about it, is a ringing endorsement of his process. Think about it. I could actually be considered his "target audience/market marauder", someone who only recognizes gardens when they are in neat little rows or squares, someone who looks at his system and is visually impacted by "tangled mess", so we just keep going past it. And there's the secret, in a nutshell.
Mr. Austin spends time discussing in depth how to be intentional with your design, how to create water ponds and water flow so that you aren't having to "water" from your house etc. Those chapters were particularly insightful and thought provoking.
The entire book Secret Garden of Survival: How to build a Camouflaged food forest is definitely worth the buy and the read. It's thought provoking, at a minimum it gets you thinking how you can incorporate the elements in your existing garden space, even if you don't have tons of property like he has.
And just in time for this blogpost, Mr. Austin was kind enough to respond to my questions. Here are the questions and his responses:
Reminder: I may be an above average prepper, but I am barely a dimly lit bulb when it comes to gardening. In gardening, I truly need someone to lead me, guide me and walk beside me, and almost literally, help me find the way. Having said that....
I think this a great book to add to your arsenal. My gardening results improved significantly when I incorporated the BacktoEden wood chip methodology. So I have hope that Secret Garden of Survival will yield similar results.
Rick Austin's theory is to create agricultural, mutually symbiotic "circles" called "guilds" to create 4-5 layers of food or medicinal plants in the same space (more or less) that you would grow a single tree.
His layers are the tree, then some type of vining plant (think grapes) growing up the tree, then some type of shrub (i.e., berry bushes) at the edge of the perimeter of the tree branches (think just at or outside where the leaves would drop, if you ran a curtain down from the branches), and herbs or ground cover just outside the shrub layer. One would also plant onions or something similar at the base of the tree to keep mice etc from eating the bark of a tree.
On his website, Rick has the following graphic:
The whole point of this system according to Mr. Austin, is to plant perennial food plants, basically a plant it once, then leave it alone process. Hey, you know that's my kind of gardening.
I have an orange tree I could possibly try with this system, if I wasn't renting. In theory, I would dig up a bunch of circular space under the tree, replacing the grass with wood chips (I am sold on the Back to Eden wood chip benefits.)
I would then plant some type of vining fruit/nut plant. If I had run across this system sooner, I might have planted my grape vines under here--they're not doing anything for me out in the front yard anyway. I'm not sure from the book if I'm running my vines straight up (low hanging branch in sun on left) or running it up the trunk. This is kind of a bad set up, because in the winter my house casts shade pretty much all day the way you see it right now (which BTW, is 12:30pm when this picture was taken.)
Following this, I would plant shrubs (berry bushes) at the edge of the orange tree; then herb plants beyond that, and ground cover which would run through from the edge of the herb layer inside to the tree.
Rick's system works where he is, because he's living in the country. Most of us don't, so it's a bit harder to see how it would all work "living in the city."
My neighbor has a set up which would be virtually ideal to grow a camouflaged survival garden, so since it's cleaner and easier to visualize it with his, I borrowed it ;)
It's easy to see with George's set up, particularly if that planter was just a foot or so larger, how you could run a vining plant up that tree, plant some berry bushes toward the outer edge, some herbs and/or ground cover on the bottom, (in fact, doesn't it look like herbs/ground cover there at the base?) and just prune the tree so it doesn't get so out of control that it blocks all the sunlight.
So I can see that it would work, even in a city.
Here's what I wish the book would do. In chapter 5, he talks about what kinds of guilds you would need to plant if your "tree" was a walnut tree. He advises, since walnuts trees are toxic to many plants, to companion plant Elderberry, Mulberry, Currants, Tomatoes and Peppers, things which can thrive in a walnut's toxicity.
That's actually the only time he is specific. I am a dimly lit gardening bulb. I need more specifics! Sure, I could buy the book Carrots love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening, but that book (from what I remember) is about row gardening or at best, square foot gardening. This is a completely different way of gardening, so the same principles wouldn't necessarily apply, would they?
He infers that it will, but he is not clear as a bell on that point, at least not as clear as someone like me needs him to be. I concede that I am perhaps over thinking this. The whole point of growing this type of system, is to grow food which looks "wild" and does not scream "garden here, come ransack me." So perhaps it is not so necessary to be as rigid and specific as I am thinking I need (i.e., orange tree, grape vine, blueberry, echinacea, strawberry.) He does get a tiny bit more specific in chapter 10, but not a whole lot.
The other issue I have with this system, has more to do with my life issues. I am incredibly concrete in my thinking. I like things to visually "square up:" for reals, you would not believe my food storage all of which is squared up, labeled, categorized etc. By the middle to end of a normal gardening season when stuff is fully grown, it's all I can do not to give up--the visual "clutter" of going from nice neat rows to a jungle is almost more than I can stand. It's visually overwhelming for me.
So here's this system which is by design, intended to be visually overwhelming, so as to stay "hidden." You immediately see my problem, don't you? Which actually, when you think about it, is a ringing endorsement of his process. Think about it. I could actually be considered his "target audience/market marauder", someone who only recognizes gardens when they are in neat little rows or squares, someone who looks at his system and is visually impacted by "tangled mess", so we just keep going past it. And there's the secret, in a nutshell.
Mr. Austin spends time discussing in depth how to be intentional with your design, how to create water ponds and water flow so that you aren't having to "water" from your house etc. Those chapters were particularly insightful and thought provoking.
The entire book Secret Garden of Survival: How to build a Camouflaged food forest is definitely worth the buy and the read. It's thought provoking, at a minimum it gets you thinking how you can incorporate the elements in your existing garden space, even if you don't have tons of property like he has.
And just in time for this blogpost, Mr. Austin was kind enough to respond to my questions. Here are the questions and his responses:
1. One of my problems in gardening is that I am pretty overwhelmed when the garden is in full production, it's hard for me to access. Although I am enthusiastic about this whole concept I get the feeling that this system could quickly grow "out of hand." (I know that's likely part of the point.) Is there a way to utilize your system but not have it so "overgrown" so that I can maximize harvest and don't get overwhelmed?
Good question Kathryn. The beauty of this concept is that only one thing is ripe at one time. For example, strawberries are the first to ripen in my region, so early in the spring I am picking strawberries...and only those strawberries that are ripe...I simply go through the garden every day for less than an hour and pick the stuff that is ripe...Then raspberries ripen (strawberries are done), so I am picking raspberries...then blackberries come into season- so I am picking blackberries...Since everything does not ripen at the same time, I only have to pick what is ripe and later in the season, the blueberries, peaches, pears, apples, etc...ripen until the figs are about the last thing to ripen at the end of the year.
Therefore, even though I pick a lot of fruit, nuts and berries each season, it is not all ripe at the same time, like would be the case in a traditional vegetable garden or farm.
Thus, we don't have a traditional "fall harvest" like they did in the old days of farming... So I am never "overwhelmed" with picking the harvest.
2. Maybe I haven't read far enough, but I had thought there would be many more examples of "what to plant" together in guilds. Have I just not read far enough? For example, on page 33 you illustrate a Walnut guild, with elderberry, mulberry, currant, tomato and peppers. I guess I was expecting a specific list like that in chapter 5, versus what is outlined in the Fruit Guild: Fruit tree, berry bush, herb, ground cover.
Being a novice gardener, I don't know enough to know if "any" fruit tree will work with "any" berry bush, herb, ground cover, and vining layer?
As I tell people all the time, it would be impossible for me to discuss every berry, fruit tree, nut tree, herb, etc. for every region, every USDA Zone, and every elevation...the concept is the same in every area, but the specific variety of each type of bush or tree is going to be different in each area...If I tried the book would be 800 pages long.
Your best bet is to establish a relationship with a locally owned nursery who propagates locally grow plants that are indigenous to your area... there are apple trees that do well in Texas, and there are apple trees that do well in New Hampshire, but a tree from New Hampshire will grow in Texas, but will never set fruit...that is why you should not buy plants from the big box stores...most are grown and shipped from 1500 miles away and are not able to handle the diseases, rainfall (or lack of it), cold, hot, elevation, etc. that are specific to your area.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Remembrance Day
This weekend marks the one hundredth anniversary of the beginning of The Great War. For those of us in the USA, that would be World War I.
I think Americans are largely emotionally removed from this war. We see reminders of it every once in a while doing genealogy research; we think, "how great to have these World War 1 Draft cards with so much wonderful info on them." And it is wonderful, but those cards come at a heavy cost.
In Britain especially, France and Belgium, Remembrance Day is exceptionally poignant and deep felt, even 100 years later. The total number of casualties during World War 1 was over 37 million, including 10 million military men perishing and 7 million civilians. In Britain alone, 1 million men in their prime were killed, and another 1 million so gravely wounded that they were never able to again function in society. That is 2% of their population at the time.
Classics such as All Quiet on the Western Front, document the horrific fighting conditions of this Great War. This book particularly is perhaps the seminal work of the century, bringing to life the heavy cost of freedom. It ought to be required reading for every high schooler studying the modern day period, or world history. The film by the same name starring Lew Ayres, ought to be compulsory viewing on November 11, since every one "has the day off" anyway. In fact, now that I've thought about it, there's an independent film theater near me. I think I will suggest it.
Charles Todd wrote a series of fiction novels starring Inspector Ian Rutledge, the first of which is entitled "A Test of Wills: the First Ian Rutledge Mysteries." Inspector Rutledge is an up and coming detective when he is sent to fight on the western front in WW1. The series picks up as he has come home with shell shock. WW1 gave us this term which resulted from men fighting in vertical trenches, dug 5-6 feet deep and only about 2 feet wide: "just barely big enough" as the saying went, "for a man to die in." Mortars would explode in and around fighting men with no where to really go for cover, they'd just have to "deal with it," hence the name. Charles Todd does an exemplary job of describing the difficulties British men and women had not only reintegrating into society, but the terrible toll on the men's families and society as a whole. The series is a great read and I recommend all of them.
Here in California, there are numerous Veterans organizations selling red poppies for Remembrance Day in front of grocery stores, with proceeds going to help veteran's causes. Most people pass by without much of a thought. I wonder if many actually know how the red poppy became a symbol of the sacrifice made by so many?
In the fighting areas, particularly France and Belgium, the devastation caused to the landscape created a wasteland of churned up soil, smashed up woods, fields and streams. It was so severe, nothing would have grown there.
As we near the official marking of Remembrance Day here in the USA, November 11th, I hope that we will pause and reflect on the great price freedom costs.
I think Americans are largely emotionally removed from this war. We see reminders of it every once in a while doing genealogy research; we think, "how great to have these World War 1 Draft cards with so much wonderful info on them." And it is wonderful, but those cards come at a heavy cost.
In Britain especially, France and Belgium, Remembrance Day is exceptionally poignant and deep felt, even 100 years later. The total number of casualties during World War 1 was over 37 million, including 10 million military men perishing and 7 million civilians. In Britain alone, 1 million men in their prime were killed, and another 1 million so gravely wounded that they were never able to again function in society. That is 2% of their population at the time.
Classics such as All Quiet on the Western Front, document the horrific fighting conditions of this Great War. This book particularly is perhaps the seminal work of the century, bringing to life the heavy cost of freedom. It ought to be required reading for every high schooler studying the modern day period, or world history. The film by the same name starring Lew Ayres, ought to be compulsory viewing on November 11, since every one "has the day off" anyway. In fact, now that I've thought about it, there's an independent film theater near me. I think I will suggest it.
Charles Todd wrote a series of fiction novels starring Inspector Ian Rutledge, the first of which is entitled "A Test of Wills: the First Ian Rutledge Mysteries." Inspector Rutledge is an up and coming detective when he is sent to fight on the western front in WW1. The series picks up as he has come home with shell shock. WW1 gave us this term which resulted from men fighting in vertical trenches, dug 5-6 feet deep and only about 2 feet wide: "just barely big enough" as the saying went, "for a man to die in." Mortars would explode in and around fighting men with no where to really go for cover, they'd just have to "deal with it," hence the name. Charles Todd does an exemplary job of describing the difficulties British men and women had not only reintegrating into society, but the terrible toll on the men's families and society as a whole. The series is a great read and I recommend all of them.
Here in California, there are numerous Veterans organizations selling red poppies for Remembrance Day in front of grocery stores, with proceeds going to help veteran's causes. Most people pass by without much of a thought. I wonder if many actually know how the red poppy became a symbol of the sacrifice made by so many?
In the fighting areas, particularly France and Belgium, the devastation caused to the landscape created a wasteland of churned up soil, smashed up woods, fields and streams. It was so severe, nothing would have grown there.
The spring of 1915 the weather in the region of Ypres, Belgian Flanders, was unusually warm. Ypres was the site of one of the worst battles in WW1. The ground had been so disturbed by the fighting that the poppy seeds were randomly disbursed over the ground. When spring arrived, volunteer poppy plants started popping up spontaneously, covering the fields with delicate, vibrant flowers- a start contrast to the horrors of war.
The flowers caught the eye of Canadian soldier John McCrae, who penned what has become the immortal words of the poem, "In Flanders Fields":
In Flanders field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
This poem inspired American Moina Belle Michael and Frenchwoman Anna Geurin, to encourage people to use the red poppy as a symbol of the sacrifice of so many in the Great War. In England this year, to honor the 100th anniversary, ceramic poppies have been planted near the Tower of London, one for each British, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh life lost in World War I. It is an incredible sight:
As we near the official marking of Remembrance Day here in the USA, November 11th, I hope that we will pause and reflect on the great price freedom costs.
Friday, November 7, 2014
I Must Be Living in a Fantasy World
Yes, if you're old enough that might conjure up memories of Survivor's High on You, <= great song BTW.
How is it possible that I could go to bed Tuesday night, Dan Bongino (running for Maryland's 6th district) was 3% ahead in the polls with over 90% of the precincts in, and somehow magically his opponent beat him by tens of thousands of votes? Statistically once the precinct hits 11% reporting in, the margin doesn't generally change much. Given his opponent utilized a bunch of sleazeball tactics, you'll understand my skepticism that this was a clean election. I must be living in a fantasy world.
Some of the young people in my church congregation are participating in a music video. I don't know if the producers didn't communicate participation qualifications, or the local people in charge didn't read the instructions or what, but it has resulted in a lot of hurt feelings, the vast majority of which could have been easily avoided by just being frank and upfront.
I have been sadly astounded by the foam and fang which has come out in this production. Back in the old days, when celluloid was a price sensitive commodity, we cared about making every penny squeal, so producers tried to frame everything as efficiently as possible. In the digital world, it's just a function of time, so 80-90% of shots will end up on the proverbial cutting room floor, never seeing the light of day. So for people to be losing their minds for their (or their kid's) perceived 15 seconds of fame which will not likely even be included, is just amazing. I guess I live in a fantasy world where everyone does their best, sometimes the marbles roll your way, and we can always choose to be happy for someone else's success.
I do a lot of genealogy research, data processing, uploading, etc.. A lot. I just came back from the County Hall of Records today where I transcribed a bunch of death certificates for people who live out of state and don't have a chance to get there themselves. Those people who seek my help are always so grateful and appreciative, even if what they end up with is little more than they already had. On the other hand, I can always tell when I'm dealing with a person who happens to be the same religion I am. They're the ones who are generally condescending, rude and angry, and that's a kind description. I received one of those emails tonight demanding to know why I had messed with his aunt's information on an online database (I corrected the name spelling, merged a duplicate record) and how dare I? I dunno, I guess it's because I must be living in a fantasy world where we genealogists appreciate the time, research and work that others do on our behalf to make our records better. Silly me.
These instances, recent and close together as they have been, have reminded me of my own sharp edges which need to be softened and smoothed out. I see things generally through an engineering and mathematical lens: fastest way between two points is a straight line, what's the most efficient process to accomplish a task, etc. I rarely even notice what is surely road kill on the superhighway as I blaze through life at breakneck speeds. I really do live in my own fantasy world projecting my values on to others.
And then every once in a while, something happens which makes me pause, take a breath, reset, and view it from a different perspective. It doesn't often change my sense of right and wrong, but it does generally allow me to forgive others and obtain forgiveness myself.
Namaste.
Monday, November 3, 2014
In California: Does your vote matter?
Oy vay. Once again, it's the last minute and I'm writing about propositions and candidates. Some day, I'll write ahead of time. The following are just my thoughts-- you're welcome to share, disagree, ignore :)
Prop 1: The Water Bond
You'd think I'd be thrilled. Have you read it? Here's my problem with it: (1) costs to taxpayers- $360 MILLION a year annually for the next 40 years. (2) the repeated refrain of "funds to be used for wildlife, habitats, restoring watersheds." Why does that just sound like a huge boondoggle, which does nothing to actually build storage systems for water? Oh wait, of the $7.1 billion bonds, $2.7 is for new storage except that funds are to be used for (and I quote) "only to be used to cover costs for "public benefits" such as restoring habitats, improving water quality...improving recreation." $810 million for regional water projects intended to improve water supplies such as "habitat for fish" and flood protection etc etc. All the earmarked $$ amounts say the same things.
AT WHAT POINT IN TIME IN OUR DROUGHT DO WE STOP WORSHIPING THE ENVIRONMENT and start SOLVING THE PROBLEMS?
I predict it will pass because no one has bothered to read it. Years from now, we'll still have no water storage and a ton of debt, but at least the fish will be happy.
Prop 2: Rainy Day Fund
How is this possibly a "rainy day fund" when the Proposition states specifically "add 1.5% of general revenue into the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA, the existing rainy day fund) until it reaches 10% of general fund revenue except: from 2015-2030 50% of deposits must be used to pay for fiscal obligations such as budget loans and unfunded state pension plans, permits the legislature to suspend or reduce the deposits to the BSA or withdraw from the BSA when the governor declares a "budget emergency."
So how is this a rainy day fund again?? How about we just QUIT SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE ON things like puddles for fish??
Prop 45: Insurance Company Rates
I don't know about you, but I am really over the government telling my insurance company what to charge, what to cover, blah blah blah.
Prop 46: Medical Malpractice
Really? Call me old-fashioned, but I figure in the unlikely event your doctor actually commits a crime by performing a medical procedure on you while intoxicated or high...well...maybe jail is a better alternative for him/her than a bazillion dollars for you? I mean, wouldn't the public good be better served by that than by a money payout? I just see malpractice rates for the good doctors skyrocketing which will incline them to set up shop somewhere else in the USA.
Prop 47: Reduces penalties for "some crimes"
Translation: let the dopers go free. Trying to figure out (and failing) how passing this law will result in an increase in revenue of $150-250 million, of which 25% will go to the Board of Education, and that somehow, releasing 10,000 inmates into the population due to their sentences being reduced will make our (and I quote) "schools and neighborhoods safer."
Prop 48: Indian Gaming Compacts
Originally gambling was supposed to be restricted to reservation land (Morongo et all.) Somehow Hawaiian Gardens (near Los Angeles) is "tribal land" and that city now looks like a ghetto. This proposition would allow building MORE of these casinos on citified-land which can be traced back to a tribe. NEWSFLASH: that's pretty much the entire state of California, meaning there would be little or no restriction on where casinos could be built.
People running for office:
Here's the standard against which I am measuring candidates this year: does the candidate believe that Government should be concerned chiefly with providing infrastructure and security to its citizenry or does the candidate believe that government's role is to micromanage every aspect of our daily lives?
Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsome believe in the latter (someone explain to me how a statewide plastic bag ban, which Moonbeam signed and Harris supported, improves infrastructure or provides for the common defense?) I believe that Jose Solorio is cut from that same cloth, more importantly, I know that electing JANET NGUYEN to the California Senate will change the balance of power and break the stranglehold of the dictatorship we have been living under. Here in Orange county, as much as I'll hate to lose him from Huntington Beach City Council, Matt Harper has a proven track record of adhering to the former. So does Alan Mansoor, but the RINO machine for Michelle Steele is outspending him 4:1.
Here in Huntington Beach, Erik Peterson and Lyn Semeta believe strongly in the former. There are a host of great candidates to back them up: Alexander Polsky, Mike Posey, Barbara Delglieze, Billy O'Connell. If you are looking to put Huntington Beach back on the right track, you will not go wrong voting for anyone except for the dictatorship of Joe Shaw, Connie Boardman and their shadow Mark Bixby.
For the record: Maryland! PLEASE ELECT DAN BONGINO !!
Your vote matters. There are too many idiots in California who will vote in Brown, Harris and Newsome, but you CAN stymie them by changing the balance of power in the Senate and sending good, honest people to the State Assembly. You can take back your city one council at a time. And you can use common sense when voting for propositions and stop the government micromanagement in your lives.
Prop 1: The Water Bond
You'd think I'd be thrilled. Have you read it? Here's my problem with it: (1) costs to taxpayers- $360 MILLION a year annually for the next 40 years. (2) the repeated refrain of "funds to be used for wildlife, habitats, restoring watersheds." Why does that just sound like a huge boondoggle, which does nothing to actually build storage systems for water? Oh wait, of the $7.1 billion bonds, $2.7 is for new storage except that funds are to be used for (and I quote) "only to be used to cover costs for "public benefits" such as restoring habitats, improving water quality...improving recreation." $810 million for regional water projects intended to improve water supplies such as "habitat for fish" and flood protection etc etc. All the earmarked $$ amounts say the same things.
AT WHAT POINT IN TIME IN OUR DROUGHT DO WE STOP WORSHIPING THE ENVIRONMENT and start SOLVING THE PROBLEMS?
I predict it will pass because no one has bothered to read it. Years from now, we'll still have no water storage and a ton of debt, but at least the fish will be happy.
Prop 2: Rainy Day Fund
How is this possibly a "rainy day fund" when the Proposition states specifically "add 1.5% of general revenue into the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA, the existing rainy day fund) until it reaches 10% of general fund revenue except: from 2015-2030 50% of deposits must be used to pay for fiscal obligations such as budget loans and unfunded state pension plans, permits the legislature to suspend or reduce the deposits to the BSA or withdraw from the BSA when the governor declares a "budget emergency."
So how is this a rainy day fund again?? How about we just QUIT SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE ON things like puddles for fish??
Prop 45: Insurance Company Rates
I don't know about you, but I am really over the government telling my insurance company what to charge, what to cover, blah blah blah.
Prop 46: Medical Malpractice
Really? Call me old-fashioned, but I figure in the unlikely event your doctor actually commits a crime by performing a medical procedure on you while intoxicated or high...well...maybe jail is a better alternative for him/her than a bazillion dollars for you? I mean, wouldn't the public good be better served by that than by a money payout? I just see malpractice rates for the good doctors skyrocketing which will incline them to set up shop somewhere else in the USA.
Prop 47: Reduces penalties for "some crimes"
Translation: let the dopers go free. Trying to figure out (and failing) how passing this law will result in an increase in revenue of $150-250 million, of which 25% will go to the Board of Education, and that somehow, releasing 10,000 inmates into the population due to their sentences being reduced will make our (and I quote) "schools and neighborhoods safer."
Prop 48: Indian Gaming Compacts
Originally gambling was supposed to be restricted to reservation land (Morongo et all.) Somehow Hawaiian Gardens (near Los Angeles) is "tribal land" and that city now looks like a ghetto. This proposition would allow building MORE of these casinos on citified-land which can be traced back to a tribe. NEWSFLASH: that's pretty much the entire state of California, meaning there would be little or no restriction on where casinos could be built.
People running for office:
Here's the standard against which I am measuring candidates this year: does the candidate believe that Government should be concerned chiefly with providing infrastructure and security to its citizenry or does the candidate believe that government's role is to micromanage every aspect of our daily lives?
Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsome believe in the latter (someone explain to me how a statewide plastic bag ban, which Moonbeam signed and Harris supported, improves infrastructure or provides for the common defense?) I believe that Jose Solorio is cut from that same cloth, more importantly, I know that electing JANET NGUYEN to the California Senate will change the balance of power and break the stranglehold of the dictatorship we have been living under. Here in Orange county, as much as I'll hate to lose him from Huntington Beach City Council, Matt Harper has a proven track record of adhering to the former. So does Alan Mansoor, but the RINO machine for Michelle Steele is outspending him 4:1.
Here in Huntington Beach, Erik Peterson and Lyn Semeta believe strongly in the former. There are a host of great candidates to back them up: Alexander Polsky, Mike Posey, Barbara Delglieze, Billy O'Connell. If you are looking to put Huntington Beach back on the right track, you will not go wrong voting for anyone except for the dictatorship of Joe Shaw, Connie Boardman and their shadow Mark Bixby.
For the record: Maryland! PLEASE ELECT DAN BONGINO !!
Your vote matters. There are too many idiots in California who will vote in Brown, Harris and Newsome, but you CAN stymie them by changing the balance of power in the Senate and sending good, honest people to the State Assembly. You can take back your city one council at a time. And you can use common sense when voting for propositions and stop the government micromanagement in your lives.
Friday, October 24, 2014
A Person of Your Word
It's said "..in the last days, perilous times shall come. Men will be lovers of their own selves..."
After getting our Honda Pilot repaired and back to "before the accident status," which in and of itself was a battle with the insurance company, we sold it. Not because of the accident, but because my DH is now commuting 80 miles a day, and 15-18 miles a gallon isn't cutting it. Believe me, it hurt. I love that Honda Pilot. The last battle with the insurance company was repairing the transmission: they only wanted to fix the cosmetic stuff, we required that the transmission be repaired, to which after 8 weeks, they finally acquiesced. In the process, we decided to take it to a name-brand transmission company: AAMCO, so that we would not have any problems in the future.
This is what AAMCO's written policy states: 12 months or 12,000 miles limited warranty; WHO IS COVERED: (in caps and bold on their documents): The person on this original repair bill and any subsequent owner.
That's a pretty cool policy. It gave us confidence that a person buying the vehicle could buy with relative confidence.
Two days ago I received a phone call from the guy who bought the Honda. It was kind of a shock (and I admit, a little worrisome.) He got my phone number off the transmission paperwork. I left it intentionally in the car, but didn't actually realize it had my address and phone number on it...or I probably would have blackened that out or something. Anyway...
He called and said the transmission was acting up, that he had called AAMCO of Huntington Beach where we had the work done, and they refused to honor the warranty stating "it was not transferable" is there something I could do to help him out? I'm like, what do you want me to do? (Cuz I'm thinking, I'm not PAYING you money if that's what you're asking for.) He said, could you maybe call them and get them to honor the warranty?
I thought, yeah, I can do that. So I called the General Manager who had been so helpful before. I guess it's only when they are TAKING your money that they are helpful. His position was, "AAMCO policy is it's not transferable" and he was adamant about it. He further queried, "why are you even involving yourself in this? It's not your problem anymore, just stop taking his phone calls."
And therein lies the crux of the matter. I relied on a warranty ("your word") to sell the vehicle in good conscience. I gave "my word" that the vehicle had certain known defects (accident, repair) and the buyer accepted "my word" that the defects were under warranty.
You don't get to make me a liar because you are.
So I had the buyer scan me a copy of the front and back, checked AAMCO's website. All said the same thing: Original purchaser and any subsequent owner are covered.
So I typed up a letter which I served in person this morning, in the event I could not get them to see reason this morning. It went like this:
"If you are reading this letter, delivered to you or your General Manager in person, it is because all attempts to get you to honor the warranty for my 2005 Honda Pilot performed 26 July 2014, have failed. Litigation will follow.
Contrary to what was stated by your General Manager by telephone yesterday, my receipt and authorization for work performed clearly states: “AAMCO used transmission and transfer case, with AAMCO 12 month/12,000 mile Limited Warranty” and then goes on to describe the Used Transmission and Used Transfer Case.
(GM) stated on the phone to me yesterday, and you stated on the phone to (buyer) yesterday, that “the warranty was not transferable.” Not only is this not what was stated to me in July when I had the work performed upon which I relied in selling the vehicle, it is NOT AAMCO policy, which is clearly stated on the back of the receipt in terms and conditions of a 12 month/12,000 mile limited warranty which states “WHO IS COVERED: The customer listed on this repair order, and any subsequent owner of the vehicle.”
(Buyer) phone number is XXX. I hope to hear from him or you within 30 minutes of the delivery of this letter that you have decided to honor the warranty. That is how long it
will take for me to reach (xxx) Court and file litigation."
My meeting with the AAMCO GM was unfruitful. He attempted to tell me that I had purchased AAMCO's total car care, a service which covers consumables: brakes, oil changes, routine maintenance etc, which IS NOT transferable, and that the line which states Aamco TTC is not transferable means anything performed at Aamco is not transferable.
I've put on a bit of weight since I retired from suing people for a living, and I don't Dress for Success anymore, so I must just look stupid. At that point I just closed the meeting, delivered the letter and left for court.
I went to court, found out they moved civil litigation to a different courthouse in the center of the county which didn't fit with my timetable this morning, so lucky for AAMCO, I missed my self imposed 30 minute deadline. Ironically, I was at the intersection of the next courthouse this afternoon when the AAMCO owner called me. He told me he needed more time to "read my repair documents, and could I give him until Monday?"
I said, "I'm at the courthouse intersection. As soon as I find a parking place, I'm filing litigation. So you've got maybe 20 or 30 minutes," reiterated the letter, added the part about the GM trying to use Aamco TTC as a way to get out of the warranty and hung up.
25 minutes later I got a phone call back from AAMCO telling me the buyer had an appointment on Monday, they'll take care of him from here on out, 27 minutes I got a text and thanks from the buyer for my help.
So what's the point of this blogpost?
It's really simple: WE NEED TO BE PERSONS OF INTEGRITY.
Sure, technically speaking, this issue wasn't my problem. Technically speaking, the buyer way overstepped his boundaries in contacting me and asking for help. If the warranty had actually said "not transferable" he and I would have had a different conversation. But when I give my word, I keep it. And I expect that when you give me your word, you're going to keep it to the best of your ability. And I believe in karma: that what you cast out on the waters eventually makes its way back to you.
In the end, it will all work out. Hopefully AAMCO will keep their word. It cost me a little time, and would have cost me a little money to file paperwork (I always go BIG and have the Marshalls serve litigation: nothing gets attention like a man with a badge telling you to go to court !), and I get to feel like I made a good difference in someone's life today.
And how often do we get to say that?
After getting our Honda Pilot repaired and back to "before the accident status," which in and of itself was a battle with the insurance company, we sold it. Not because of the accident, but because my DH is now commuting 80 miles a day, and 15-18 miles a gallon isn't cutting it. Believe me, it hurt. I love that Honda Pilot. The last battle with the insurance company was repairing the transmission: they only wanted to fix the cosmetic stuff, we required that the transmission be repaired, to which after 8 weeks, they finally acquiesced. In the process, we decided to take it to a name-brand transmission company: AAMCO, so that we would not have any problems in the future.
This is what AAMCO's written policy states: 12 months or 12,000 miles limited warranty; WHO IS COVERED: (in caps and bold on their documents): The person on this original repair bill and any subsequent owner.
That's a pretty cool policy. It gave us confidence that a person buying the vehicle could buy with relative confidence.
Two days ago I received a phone call from the guy who bought the Honda. It was kind of a shock (and I admit, a little worrisome.) He got my phone number off the transmission paperwork. I left it intentionally in the car, but didn't actually realize it had my address and phone number on it...or I probably would have blackened that out or something. Anyway...
He called and said the transmission was acting up, that he had called AAMCO of Huntington Beach where we had the work done, and they refused to honor the warranty stating "it was not transferable" is there something I could do to help him out? I'm like, what do you want me to do? (Cuz I'm thinking, I'm not PAYING you money if that's what you're asking for.) He said, could you maybe call them and get them to honor the warranty?
I thought, yeah, I can do that. So I called the General Manager who had been so helpful before. I guess it's only when they are TAKING your money that they are helpful. His position was, "AAMCO policy is it's not transferable" and he was adamant about it. He further queried, "why are you even involving yourself in this? It's not your problem anymore, just stop taking his phone calls."
And therein lies the crux of the matter. I relied on a warranty ("your word") to sell the vehicle in good conscience. I gave "my word" that the vehicle had certain known defects (accident, repair) and the buyer accepted "my word" that the defects were under warranty.
You don't get to make me a liar because you are.
So I had the buyer scan me a copy of the front and back, checked AAMCO's website. All said the same thing: Original purchaser and any subsequent owner are covered.
So I typed up a letter which I served in person this morning, in the event I could not get them to see reason this morning. It went like this:
"If you are reading this letter, delivered to you or your General Manager in person, it is because all attempts to get you to honor the warranty for my 2005 Honda Pilot performed 26 July 2014, have failed. Litigation will follow.
Contrary to what was stated by your General Manager by telephone yesterday, my receipt and authorization for work performed clearly states: “AAMCO used transmission and transfer case, with AAMCO 12 month/12,000 mile Limited Warranty” and then goes on to describe the Used Transmission and Used Transfer Case.
(GM) stated on the phone to me yesterday, and you stated on the phone to (buyer) yesterday, that “the warranty was not transferable.” Not only is this not what was stated to me in July when I had the work performed upon which I relied in selling the vehicle, it is NOT AAMCO policy, which is clearly stated on the back of the receipt in terms and conditions of a 12 month/12,000 mile limited warranty which states “WHO IS COVERED: The customer listed on this repair order, and any subsequent owner of the vehicle.”
(Buyer) phone number is XXX. I hope to hear from him or you within 30 minutes of the delivery of this letter that you have decided to honor the warranty. That is how long it
will take for me to reach (xxx) Court and file litigation."
My meeting with the AAMCO GM was unfruitful. He attempted to tell me that I had purchased AAMCO's total car care, a service which covers consumables: brakes, oil changes, routine maintenance etc, which IS NOT transferable, and that the line which states Aamco TTC is not transferable means anything performed at Aamco is not transferable.
I've put on a bit of weight since I retired from suing people for a living, and I don't Dress for Success anymore, so I must just look stupid. At that point I just closed the meeting, delivered the letter and left for court.
I went to court, found out they moved civil litigation to a different courthouse in the center of the county which didn't fit with my timetable this morning, so lucky for AAMCO, I missed my self imposed 30 minute deadline. Ironically, I was at the intersection of the next courthouse this afternoon when the AAMCO owner called me. He told me he needed more time to "read my repair documents, and could I give him until Monday?"
I said, "I'm at the courthouse intersection. As soon as I find a parking place, I'm filing litigation. So you've got maybe 20 or 30 minutes," reiterated the letter, added the part about the GM trying to use Aamco TTC as a way to get out of the warranty and hung up.
25 minutes later I got a phone call back from AAMCO telling me the buyer had an appointment on Monday, they'll take care of him from here on out, 27 minutes I got a text and thanks from the buyer for my help.
So what's the point of this blogpost?
It's really simple: WE NEED TO BE PERSONS OF INTEGRITY.
Sure, technically speaking, this issue wasn't my problem. Technically speaking, the buyer way overstepped his boundaries in contacting me and asking for help. If the warranty had actually said "not transferable" he and I would have had a different conversation. But when I give my word, I keep it. And I expect that when you give me your word, you're going to keep it to the best of your ability. And I believe in karma: that what you cast out on the waters eventually makes its way back to you.
In the end, it will all work out. Hopefully AAMCO will keep their word. It cost me a little time, and would have cost me a little money to file paperwork (I always go BIG and have the Marshalls serve litigation: nothing gets attention like a man with a badge telling you to go to court !), and I get to feel like I made a good difference in someone's life today.
And how often do we get to say that?
Monday, October 6, 2014
Out of Time to Prepare?
In June of last year, I blogged in Dancing on Law's Gravestone, about SCOTUS mortally wounding the rule of law. Evidently that was not enough for SCOTUS. As I said then and feel even more strongly today, regardless of which side of the SSM debate you sit on, everyone should be mourning what happened today: SCOTUS ERADICATED A CORE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE: THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
I will say that Voting Still Matters. Choosing the right, constitutionally honoring officials matters. Presidents and Governors appoint judges. Senators confirm them.
I will admit I did not see today coming. I anticipated SCOTUS might rule gay marriage a constitutional "right", after all, Kagan officiated at a gay marriage a few weeks ago, for crying out loud, just poor taste for a sitting judge who has multiple cases pending on the subject. It never once occurred to me that SCOTUS would take the cheap way out, eradicate the votes of millions of people by refusing to even hear their cases. SCOTUS isn't even principled enough to stand up and defend their illogic.
I am even more stunned that this occurred a mere 48 hours after Apostolic warning by Dallin Oaks. The lightning speed of SCOTUS following this warning disturbs me deeply. I figured I had more time to prepare. 170 years ago, Joseph Smith prophesied of the Constitution being shredded. The first known record of the prophecy dates to July 19, 1840, in Nauvoo, when the prophet spoke about the redemption of Zion. Using Doctrine & Covenants 101 as a text, he said, “Even this nation will be on the verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and when the Constitution is on the brink of ruin this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction.” (Joseph Smith Papers, LDS Church Historical Archives, Box 1, March 10, 1844.)
I didn't think I'd have another 170+ years, but I was hoping for more than 48 hours for crying out loud! For me, it was a parable of being caught unprepared and off guard.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I love the Old Testament, particularly the book of Isaiah. His warnings about our day, the End Times and what we can do to forestall calamity (or what we are doing to bring about calamity) are salient and clear. The pre-eminent, foremost scholar on Isaiah, Avraham Gileadi, not only translated the Isaiah Dead Sea Scrolls, but has written several treatises comparing Isaiah and his prophecies of our day. I have all of his works, including his doctoral dissertation published commercially as The Literary Message of Isaiah (fair warning, it reads like a doctoral dissertation.)
My two favorites are Isaiah Decoded and The Last Days.
Among other things, Isaiah tells us the law which extends the Lord's protection is adherence to the Mosiac law, the 10 Commandments: (1) Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, (2) No graven images (3) Not take the name of the Lord in vain (4) Keep the Sabbath Day holy, (5) Honor thy Father and Mother, (6) Not kill (7) Not commit adultery (8) Not steal (9) Not bear false witness, (10) Not covet.
It ought to be pretty simple: compliance to 10 little rules. But instead, like SCOTUS, we cast them aside without thought, and don't even realize we are hastening our own demise, speeding toward destruction with ever increasing recklessness.
It is this increasing speed which upset me so much when I heard SCOTUS' action today. I accept the word of the prophet Isaiah and other prophets: we err trusting in the arm of flesh, rather than the rock of the Redeemer Jesus Christ. It is true we will never be able to store enough food, water, money, or ammo to protect us against the tide of evil. Isaiah tells us that after all we have done to prepare, only Christ will save us.
I see the SCOTUS announcement this morning as yet another nail in our coffin of unrighteousness. I no longer believe we are in the "last days", I think it is more accurate to call it the "last minutes." Reading the calamities which are- or are about to- befall us, I believe we do need to take affirmative action to prepare for them as best we can, and then do a little more. If you have zero home storage, get 72 hours, then acquire a week's worth. If you have a week's worth, push to store one month's worth. If you've obtained a month's worth, double down and get three months and so on.
The same applies to your faith: if you are lukewarm in your relationship with God, regardless of denomination, maybe it's time for you to step closer. A lot closer. Maybe you should dust off those scriptures, and find out what the Lord has in store for you, for us, and what you can and should do about it. Perhaps it's time to change course and accept Christ in to your life. If you already have, maybe it's time to make Him an active part of your daily life.
I will double down and prepare spiritually, financially, temporally (home storage) and pray earnestly that I still have enough time. Hopefully more time than the allegory shown by the scant 48 hours between Dallin Oak's talk and this morning.
I will say that Voting Still Matters. Choosing the right, constitutionally honoring officials matters. Presidents and Governors appoint judges. Senators confirm them.
I will admit I did not see today coming. I anticipated SCOTUS might rule gay marriage a constitutional "right", after all, Kagan officiated at a gay marriage a few weeks ago, for crying out loud, just poor taste for a sitting judge who has multiple cases pending on the subject. It never once occurred to me that SCOTUS would take the cheap way out, eradicate the votes of millions of people by refusing to even hear their cases. SCOTUS isn't even principled enough to stand up and defend their illogic.
I am even more stunned that this occurred a mere 48 hours after Apostolic warning by Dallin Oaks. The lightning speed of SCOTUS following this warning disturbs me deeply. I figured I had more time to prepare. 170 years ago, Joseph Smith prophesied of the Constitution being shredded. The first known record of the prophecy dates to July 19, 1840, in Nauvoo, when the prophet spoke about the redemption of Zion. Using Doctrine & Covenants 101 as a text, he said, “Even this nation will be on the verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and when the Constitution is on the brink of ruin this people will be the staff upon which the nation shall lean and they shall bear the Constitution away from the very verge of destruction.” (Joseph Smith Papers, LDS Church Historical Archives, Box 1, March 10, 1844.)
I didn't think I'd have another 170+ years, but I was hoping for more than 48 hours for crying out loud! For me, it was a parable of being caught unprepared and off guard.
Which brings me to the point of this post. I love the Old Testament, particularly the book of Isaiah. His warnings about our day, the End Times and what we can do to forestall calamity (or what we are doing to bring about calamity) are salient and clear. The pre-eminent, foremost scholar on Isaiah, Avraham Gileadi, not only translated the Isaiah Dead Sea Scrolls, but has written several treatises comparing Isaiah and his prophecies of our day. I have all of his works, including his doctoral dissertation published commercially as The Literary Message of Isaiah (fair warning, it reads like a doctoral dissertation.)
My two favorites are Isaiah Decoded and The Last Days.
Among other things, Isaiah tells us the law which extends the Lord's protection is adherence to the Mosiac law, the 10 Commandments: (1) Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, (2) No graven images (3) Not take the name of the Lord in vain (4) Keep the Sabbath Day holy, (5) Honor thy Father and Mother, (6) Not kill (7) Not commit adultery (8) Not steal (9) Not bear false witness, (10) Not covet.
It ought to be pretty simple: compliance to 10 little rules. But instead, like SCOTUS, we cast them aside without thought, and don't even realize we are hastening our own demise, speeding toward destruction with ever increasing recklessness.
It is this increasing speed which upset me so much when I heard SCOTUS' action today. I accept the word of the prophet Isaiah and other prophets: we err trusting in the arm of flesh, rather than the rock of the Redeemer Jesus Christ. It is true we will never be able to store enough food, water, money, or ammo to protect us against the tide of evil. Isaiah tells us that after all we have done to prepare, only Christ will save us.
I see the SCOTUS announcement this morning as yet another nail in our coffin of unrighteousness. I no longer believe we are in the "last days", I think it is more accurate to call it the "last minutes." Reading the calamities which are- or are about to- befall us, I believe we do need to take affirmative action to prepare for them as best we can, and then do a little more. If you have zero home storage, get 72 hours, then acquire a week's worth. If you have a week's worth, push to store one month's worth. If you've obtained a month's worth, double down and get three months and so on.
The same applies to your faith: if you are lukewarm in your relationship with God, regardless of denomination, maybe it's time for you to step closer. A lot closer. Maybe you should dust off those scriptures, and find out what the Lord has in store for you, for us, and what you can and should do about it. Perhaps it's time to change course and accept Christ in to your life. If you already have, maybe it's time to make Him an active part of your daily life.
I will double down and prepare spiritually, financially, temporally (home storage) and pray earnestly that I still have enough time. Hopefully more time than the allegory shown by the scant 48 hours between Dallin Oak's talk and this morning.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Occupy Central Hong Kong (Not)
UPDATE Oct 4th: WHAT DID I JUST SAY WHEN I MADE THIS POST ON Oct 1st??? This is the FoxNews' report on Infiltrators: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/04/hong-kong-pro-democracy-protesters-face-threat-from-criminal-triads/
This is not an analyst white paper. I don't have time to write one which will shore up my argument. But in the event that I'm proven right, note to those of you in that community: don't call me.
The WSJ wrote a short blogpost on the "Five things you should know about the situation in Hong Kong." It was so far off the mark I'm surprised it saw the light of day, and I'm really disappointed. The WSJ usually has better analysis than that, and the Asian WSJ is often an analytical force to be reckoned with.
It would be humorous if it wasn't about to become tragic that the 20-somethings in Hong Kong think their "protesting" sit in is actually going to change Beijing. Clearly, their grandparents are no longer living, and they're not listening to their parents. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or saddened that the numbers flooding Central and Wan Chai are large and visually impressive.
Here are the two rules which have governed China for seven millenia:
1. People are cannon fodder.
2. Might makes right.
Subset of #2: unless Beijing is looking for an excuse to change: it doesn't.
You forget how the PROC came into existence: by following those two rules. How was the Emperor finally overthrown and the Republic of China born? By following those two rules. Warring dynasties established? Hello. Repeat: following those two rules.
In 1989 I worked at a company staffed by quasi-former military (meaning, they weren't active duty.) In 1989 students "occupied Tiananmen Square" in advance of the first official visit by Mikhail Gorbachev. They were "protesting" for democracy. Beijing ignored them until it became apparent their "sit in" was going to violate rule 3:
3. Don't embarrass Beijing (goes to the age-old save face tradition).
They were warned. I remember the conversations with the "former" military types when the "lone guy" stood in front of a tank and "faced it down and backed it off." Puh-leaze. I said: "really? The PROC Army which kicked our butt in Vietnam and Korea (and by that I mean just kept sending wave after wave of soldiers...with 6 billion people to use as cannon fodder, they can outlast us), you think that Army was scared off by one little student? PUH LEAZE. That was the equivalent of the ROTC, and that was a warning shot across the bow. That square will be cleared and cleaned up before Gorbachev even lifts off."
And then they were surprised when 48 hours later, the real PROC Army moved in and cleared the square.
If you're thinking Beijing wouldn't dare do that in Hong Kong, you're slightly right. They have learned a few things since Tiananmen. You've forgotten however, that Hong Kong is an island. There's no place to run. If Beijing cares enough to act (and right now since rule #3 hasn't been violated, they're choosing to ignore the temper tantrum) it wouldn't take much to simply not allow them to leave.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Beijing simply built a virtual fence or blockade around Central and Wanchai, or even the whole island if need be, and starved them out. You wanna stay there? Fine. We'll simply keep water, food, sanitation, transportation OUT. See how long you last when the food, water and sanitation runs out (about 3 days, BTW.) And then we'll only let you out under our terms and conditions. Or send in infiltrators, start a riot which will provide an excuse for the Army to move in, and when the smoke clears there will be a lot of bodies.
Uneducated westerners view the world from their perspective, demonstrating their flawed thinking and "analysis" with their commentary. They should remember (or learn):
1. The ineffective "law enforcement" firing tear gas, "retreating" from the protesters? That's local Hong Kong police. They are local folk, and they are similar to the warning shot fired by the tank. They are meant to simply keep the peace, try and persuade people to go home before the PROC Army shows up.
2. Beijing will not acquiesce in order to keep the markets open: western thought is you wouldn't want to kill the goose. Beijing doesn't give a rats' *** about the financial markets. I forget the numbers back in the 1997 takeover, but basically it was: they could shut down EVERY financial institution/practice westerners value, put it under strict communism, lose 40% and the remaining 60% of a gazillion dollars cashflow was still a hell of a lot of goose eggs (I think it was something like 11 trillion US dollars in income a year. AFTER a complete shutdown.)
3. Repeat: Hong Kong itself is an island. Nothing is grown there--food and water have to be brought in, and it's pretty easy to bring the island to its knees--the choke points are few and far between. Shut off the main roadway (that would be the tunnel), shut off access to the MTR, bring in the Navy and Army to keep things from reaching the island by sea or air, cut off power, and the island will be down in days, and people will be dying or surrendering within a week.
4. Beijing does not care about collateral damage to either people or property. Sucks to be you if you're living in Central, Wanchai or the rest of HK island. Your food and water is about to go bye-bye too. Me? I'd go stay with friends in the New Territories while I can still get out. Iconic buildings brought down? Beijing's attitude will be good riddance: they were ugly reminders of British Imperialism anyway.
5. Beijing already bent when it allowed "two systems" to be instituted. You knew they didn't really mean it, right? Wait, you thought they meant it?? Noooooooo! That was just subterfuge to get Britain to hand over the island of Hong Kong and the peninsula without having to go to real war. Unless Beijing wants, and I mean wants to move off the communist-socialism yardstick, like they did when they allowed tourism in which gave them the excuse to move away from hardline extremist Mao-communism, this will not end well for the idealistic, naive students in Central and Wanchai. An example will be made. The tail does NOT wag the dog.
Again I say: unless Beijing is looking for an excuse to change it will not end well. As long as the stupid, naive students don't do anything stupid (like they're threatening to do by storming a Beijing government building) Beijing may just continue to ignore them. But that is the best case. At worst, a lot of people are going to die.
It's unfortunate that the vast majority in Hong Kong do not have food or water stockpiled, many of them have cash in the bank but won't be able to get to it, and now that the airport is way off island (versus at Kai Tek on the Kowloon side) have no way to escape. In short: they are unprepared to ride out calamity.
I could be wrong. But seven thousand years of history says I'm probably right.
This is not an analyst white paper. I don't have time to write one which will shore up my argument. But in the event that I'm proven right, note to those of you in that community: don't call me.
The WSJ wrote a short blogpost on the "Five things you should know about the situation in Hong Kong." It was so far off the mark I'm surprised it saw the light of day, and I'm really disappointed. The WSJ usually has better analysis than that, and the Asian WSJ is often an analytical force to be reckoned with.
It would be humorous if it wasn't about to become tragic that the 20-somethings in Hong Kong think their "protesting" sit in is actually going to change Beijing. Clearly, their grandparents are no longer living, and they're not listening to their parents. I'm not sure if I'm impressed or saddened that the numbers flooding Central and Wan Chai are large and visually impressive.
Here are the two rules which have governed China for seven millenia:
1. People are cannon fodder.
2. Might makes right.
Subset of #2: unless Beijing is looking for an excuse to change: it doesn't.
You forget how the PROC came into existence: by following those two rules. How was the Emperor finally overthrown and the Republic of China born? By following those two rules. Warring dynasties established? Hello. Repeat: following those two rules.
In 1989 I worked at a company staffed by quasi-former military (meaning, they weren't active duty.) In 1989 students "occupied Tiananmen Square" in advance of the first official visit by Mikhail Gorbachev. They were "protesting" for democracy. Beijing ignored them until it became apparent their "sit in" was going to violate rule 3:
3. Don't embarrass Beijing (goes to the age-old save face tradition).
They were warned. I remember the conversations with the "former" military types when the "lone guy" stood in front of a tank and "faced it down and backed it off." Puh-leaze. I said: "really? The PROC Army which kicked our butt in Vietnam and Korea (and by that I mean just kept sending wave after wave of soldiers...with 6 billion people to use as cannon fodder, they can outlast us), you think that Army was scared off by one little student? PUH LEAZE. That was the equivalent of the ROTC, and that was a warning shot across the bow. That square will be cleared and cleaned up before Gorbachev even lifts off."
And then they were surprised when 48 hours later, the real PROC Army moved in and cleared the square.
If you're thinking Beijing wouldn't dare do that in Hong Kong, you're slightly right. They have learned a few things since Tiananmen. You've forgotten however, that Hong Kong is an island. There's no place to run. If Beijing cares enough to act (and right now since rule #3 hasn't been violated, they're choosing to ignore the temper tantrum) it wouldn't take much to simply not allow them to leave.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Beijing simply built a virtual fence or blockade around Central and Wanchai, or even the whole island if need be, and starved them out. You wanna stay there? Fine. We'll simply keep water, food, sanitation, transportation OUT. See how long you last when the food, water and sanitation runs out (about 3 days, BTW.) And then we'll only let you out under our terms and conditions. Or send in infiltrators, start a riot which will provide an excuse for the Army to move in, and when the smoke clears there will be a lot of bodies.
Uneducated westerners view the world from their perspective, demonstrating their flawed thinking and "analysis" with their commentary. They should remember (or learn):
1. The ineffective "law enforcement" firing tear gas, "retreating" from the protesters? That's local Hong Kong police. They are local folk, and they are similar to the warning shot fired by the tank. They are meant to simply keep the peace, try and persuade people to go home before the PROC Army shows up.
2. Beijing will not acquiesce in order to keep the markets open: western thought is you wouldn't want to kill the goose. Beijing doesn't give a rats' *** about the financial markets. I forget the numbers back in the 1997 takeover, but basically it was: they could shut down EVERY financial institution/practice westerners value, put it under strict communism, lose 40% and the remaining 60% of a gazillion dollars cashflow was still a hell of a lot of goose eggs (I think it was something like 11 trillion US dollars in income a year. AFTER a complete shutdown.)
3. Repeat: Hong Kong itself is an island. Nothing is grown there--food and water have to be brought in, and it's pretty easy to bring the island to its knees--the choke points are few and far between. Shut off the main roadway (that would be the tunnel), shut off access to the MTR, bring in the Navy and Army to keep things from reaching the island by sea or air, cut off power, and the island will be down in days, and people will be dying or surrendering within a week.
4. Beijing does not care about collateral damage to either people or property. Sucks to be you if you're living in Central, Wanchai or the rest of HK island. Your food and water is about to go bye-bye too. Me? I'd go stay with friends in the New Territories while I can still get out. Iconic buildings brought down? Beijing's attitude will be good riddance: they were ugly reminders of British Imperialism anyway.
5. Beijing already bent when it allowed "two systems" to be instituted. You knew they didn't really mean it, right? Wait, you thought they meant it?? Noooooooo! That was just subterfuge to get Britain to hand over the island of Hong Kong and the peninsula without having to go to real war. Unless Beijing wants, and I mean wants to move off the communist-socialism yardstick, like they did when they allowed tourism in which gave them the excuse to move away from hardline extremist Mao-communism, this will not end well for the idealistic, naive students in Central and Wanchai. An example will be made. The tail does NOT wag the dog.
Again I say: unless Beijing is looking for an excuse to change it will not end well. As long as the stupid, naive students don't do anything stupid (like they're threatening to do by storming a Beijing government building) Beijing may just continue to ignore them. But that is the best case. At worst, a lot of people are going to die.
It's unfortunate that the vast majority in Hong Kong do not have food or water stockpiled, many of them have cash in the bank but won't be able to get to it, and now that the airport is way off island (versus at Kai Tek on the Kowloon side) have no way to escape. In short: they are unprepared to ride out calamity.
I could be wrong. But seven thousand years of history says I'm probably right.
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