chew | rechew

scrapbook, notations, random curiosity box; grass from the ground and from the reticulum to be chewed, regurgitated, and maybe digested on an opportune day.

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data visualization

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mushroom instead of styrofoam

how wonderful! this transformation of mycelium to create biodegradable beautiful packaging!

http://www.ecovativedesign.com/

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deadline

it just struck me deadline means the line where you’re dead.  hmm... makes a lot of sense. no wonder the dread.

it’s been a crazy couple of months. I miss being outdoors more than anything, although the process of making new work has been fun. and stressful. but overall, fun. i feel very lucky to be able to play and learn each day, and deeply grateful to have the help and support that i’ve been having. this year has been a year of receiving lots and lots and lots of help. 

now hopefully things will fall into place. 

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the sound of god

http://www.wildsanctuary.com/

Bernie Krause

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Thich Nhat Hanh

Life and death, hand in hand

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what you can do with simple lines

I love how people make use of simple means in the past

 This The Line animation is by Italian: Osvaldo Cavandoli in 1969

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fun fun fun

love the creative transitions and the random animals 

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all the market ladies

fantastic! 

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diverse nature

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myth-maker, dream seller

I love Neil Gaiman. He’s like the myth-maker version of Joseph Campbell, knowing different mythologies inside out, weaving them seamlessly into one dark, strange, mysterious fantastical world. 

This beautiful animation adapted from his story “Coraline” is old, but if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out!

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The Fat Drug

How humankind unwittingly joined an experiment on antibiotics and weight gain.

It is a fallacy to believe we are above animals, and that what we do to them would not come back to bite us in the end. 

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The Fat Drug - by Pagan Kennedy

IF you walk into a farm-supply store today, you’re likely to find a bag of antibiotic powder that claims to boost the growth of poultry and livestock. That’s because decades of agricultural research has shown that antibiotics seem to flip a switch in young animals’ bodies, helping them pack on pounds. Manufacturers brag about the miraculous effects of feeding antibiotics to chicks and nursing calves. Dusty agricultural journals attest to the ways in which the drugs can act like a kind of superfood to produce cheap meat.

But what if that meat is us? Recently, a group of medical investigators have begun to wonder whether antibiotics might cause the same growth promotion in humans. New evidence shows that America’s obesity epidemic may be connected to our high consumption of these drugs. But before we get to those findings, it’s helpful to start at the beginning, in 1948, when the wonder drugs were new — and big was beautiful.

That year, a biochemist named Thomas H. Jukes marveled at a pinch of golden powder in a vial. It was a new antibiotic named Aureomycin, and Mr. Jukes and his colleagues at Lederle Laboratories suspected that it would become a blockbuster, lifesaving drug. But they hoped to find other ways to profit from the powder as well. At the time, Lederle scientists had been searching for a food additive for farm animals, and Mr. Jukes believed that Aureomycin could be it. After raising chicks on Aureomycin-laced food and on ordinary mash, he found that the antibiotics did boost the chicks’ growth; some of them grew to weigh twice as much as the ones in the control group.

Mr. Jukes wanted more Aureomycin, but his bosses cut him off because the drug was in such high demand to treat human illnesses. So he hit on a novel solution. He picked through the laboratory’s dump to recover the slurry left over after the manufacture of the drug. He and his colleagues used those leftovers to carry on their experiments, now on pigs, sheep and cows. All of the animals gained weight. Trash, it turned out, could be transformed into meat.

You may be wondering whether it occurred to anyone back then that the powders would have the same effect on the human body. In fact, a number of scientists believed that antibiotics could stimulate growth in children. From our contemporary perspective, here’s where the story gets really strange: All this growth was regarded as a good thing. It was an era that celebrated monster-size animals, fat babies and big men. In 1955, a crowd gathered in a hotel ballroom to watch as feed salesmen climbed onto a scale; the men were competing to see who could gain the most weight in four months, in imitation of the cattle and hogs that ate their antibiotic-laced food. Pfizer sponsored the competition.

(visit the nytimes for the rest of the article...)

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mekong diary

lessons learned/ now learning

- hot. incredibly hot. mid-day is dead, better to wake up early

- farming is not easy. clean food is not easy. everything is easier said than done

- displacement creates trash. although we eat locally for the most part, there are still plenty of plastic bottles, foam boxes for breakfast, senseless plastic bags everyday. is it acceptable to make people who work for you go out of their way to avoid plastic? is it really that inconvenient? i still think the notion of saving time is an illusion...

- having a good team with good chemistry sometimes beats expensive technology

- i really like having a team. need to make enough money to have a team again in the future, and be able to pay and feed everyone decently

- team work and communication is crucial. nothing works without clear communication. nothing works without listening. 

- planning is very important. it provides the framework for spontaneity

- need to think long and hard about depicting death. when is it necessary to show gore and when is it voyeuristic? 

- is eating really a separate act from killing?

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Coppola sits down with critic Annette Insdorf at 92Y to discuss his life and career in this 30-minute video.http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsonon...

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sống sạch

Lâu lâu mới có dịp đọc một bài báo (đúng ra là một loạt báo) thật hay. Chú Hoàng Hải Vân là người không chỉ ngồi ghế nghĩ ra những tình huống để viết mà dám làm dám thử, tự mày mò, kiên trì theo đuổi, rồi từ kinh nghiệm bản thân mà viết - rất đáng phục.

Tuy không đồng tình với tất cả những điểm tác giả nêu lên, như việc dân ta ngày xưa sống thọ hơn bây giờ, hoặc cách chú thử nghiệm chữa bệnh theo phương pháp dân gian, hoặc một số điểm chú ghi là “khoa học đã chứng minh”  mình thấy vẫn là vấn đề còn nhiều tranh cãi (có vô vàn những thứ được gọi là “bad science" lưu hành khắp nơi, bởi vậy không phải cứ có một vài bài viết khoa học có quan điểm nào đó đọc vào là tin ngay được; tương tự, không phải cái gì truyền thống cổ truyền cũng hay). Giả dụ một số loại bệnh tật dễ tràn lan ví do người Châu Âu đem đến đi chăng nữa thì dù gì ta cũng đã nhiễm rồi. Vả lại với tốc độ và mức độ di chuyển của loài người trong thời đại này, việc tiêm nhiễm bệnh lạ là điều không thể tránh khỏi. Bởi vậy mỗi khi phát hiện ra một loại bệnh truyền nhiễm mới là cả thế giới phải quan tâm theo dõi và phối hợp khống chế. Quả đất to nhưng mà cũng thật nhỏ. Quay lưng với thuốc tây là điều cũng không thể được. Ví dụ, trẻ con sinh ra là đã phải vaccine bao nhiêu mũi rồi, không làm không được. 

Môi trường vườn chú có lẽ là môi trường lý tưởng khó có thể thực hiện được mọi nơi nhưng dù gì thì cũng là một mô hình có nhiều điểm hay chúng ta có thể học hỏi được, và hướng tới. Nào là tôn trọng biết quý những giống cây, giống vật bản địa đã được thời gian thử thách và truyền cho khả năng sinh tồn trong môi trường nước ta. Nào là sống ý thức hơn về cách tiêu dùng, về cách hóa chất mình nghiễm nhiên xài hàng ngày. v. v...    

Mình thì còn lâu mới về quê chăn nuôi được nhưng ít ra trong môi trường hiện tại cũng có thể thay đổi dần dần những thói quen xấu bắt nguồn từ sự lười biếng và phong cách sống thừa thải, hoang phí. Sống sạch vẫn là vấn đề gian nan khó thực hiện, đặc biệt ở thành phố. Ngay cả việc tránh sử dụng bao nylon còn là việc rất khó. Lâu nay mình cố gắng hạn chế lắm mà vẫn chưa hoàn toàn dứt được.   

Thôi không nói dông dài nữa, xin mời mọi người đọc từ kỳ 1 đến kỳ 14:

kỳ 1: http://thanhnien.vn/thoi-su/ky-su-organic-ky-1-cay-co-het-hon-nhien-460710.html

kỳ 14: http://thanhnien.vn/thoi-su/ky-su-organic-ky-14-quy-hoa-bao-dien-503992.html

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http://www.bbcasia.com/shows/natural-born-hustlers/

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The wisdom of Ricardo Semler

Ricardo Semler is way ahead of his time. This is one of the most incredible talks I’ve listened to in a while. I love how he emphasizes the need for people to figure things out by themselves. He instills a seed of thought about wisdom and existence, and the need to constantly question and re-question, rather than preach a dogmatic rigid one-size-fits-all system for everyone to mindlessly copy. 

Will bigger corporations head in this direction before our species die out? In the meantime, individuals probably do not need to make millions before being able to share. But it would be nice to make enough money to share more. And it would also be nice to one day build an affordable school here in Vietnam that is not about grades and competition, but about curiosity and a desire to be a kinder human being.