jonolan on Asian Beauty: “That's good. More of us – and, by that, I mean all of us – need to do so. I…” Mar 28, 13:04
on Asian Beauty: “I am glad to do my part. Let us thrust ever onward towards freedom for the women of China!” Mar 28, 11:11 on Asian Beauty: “Hehe. I actually view this particular variety of orthocegenation as a means of combating said Chinese overlords. If we take…” Mar 17, 09:37
FYI,
Reflections From A Murky Pond has been upgraded to use the WordPress 2.5 codebase. This was actually done on Sunday, March 30, 2008, but is just being announce today after some testing on my part.
Thank you.
Do not fear strong men. Fear weak men; they will cause more harm through their failures than the strong will ever cause by their successes.
— jonolan
While strong people have the will and the powers to directly effect change their strength has a basis in action and therefore must be brought to bear on a subject to be effective. The actions of the strong can be tracked and in most cases predicted. This allows a person to either adapt to- or mitigate any personally harmful effects from the actions of the strong.
Weak people do not have the will and the powers to directly effect change, but they have a nearly immeasurable capacity to cause harm to those around them through either their attempts to take action or their complete failure to take any action at all. Attempting to predict or mitigate the harmful effects of such failures is exceedingly difficult and consumes much of the efforts of any society.
Strength must be measured by both will and power and must always be viewed within the context of the given situation and environment. A thug with a handgun and the will to use it may well be considered strong in the immediate context of a mugging, but that same thug must be considered weak in the context of his society because he lacks the will and power to effect any changes on that scale.
In the alley the thugâs power can be adapted to or mitigated in many ways depending on the training, fitness and preparedness of his potential victims. On the other hand, the negative effects of this thugâs weakness and resulting failed actions and failures to act on the society as whole are far harder to accurately predict and to mitigate.
One method the average consumer can use to reduce their overall contribution to the worldâs pollution is to, where and when feasible, to buy local or regional produce, meats and other foodstuffs. The rationale is that the “shorter” supply-chain will result in less energy being used to get the food from farm to table and therefore be greener to the environment.
Recent studies have found that âconventionalâ over-the-road transportation used 4 to 17 times more fuel and emitted 5 to 17 times more CO2 from burning of the fuel than a regional-based food distribution system. This is a growing problem. In 1965, there were an estimated 787,000 combination trucks registered in the United States, and these vehicles consumed 6.658 billion gallons of fuel. In 1997, there were 1,790,000 combination trucks that used 20.294 billion gallons of fuel! Many of these trucks transport food throughout the United States. A recent study indicated that in California alone more than 485,000 truckloads of fresh fruit and vegetables leave the state every year and travel an average of 1,500 miles to reach their destinations.
The energy used to transport a one pound can of corn to the consumerâs home and to prepare it exceeds the energy needed to produce the corn.
By encouraging and supporting local or regional food systems consumers can help the environment by dropping those transportation miles from an average of 1,500 miles to and average of only 45 miles.
By taking part in a local or regional food distribution system consumers would be in many cases supporting smaller growers who cannot compete with the large national agrobusines consortiums. Many smaller growers use far less chemicals â fertilizers or pesticides â than the larger growers do. Supporting their efforts would further reduce the overall environmental impact of food distribution.
The question is not whether small producers should participate in supermarket-driven supply chains but rather how they can do so in a manner that improves their livelihoods.
Consumers can aid small growers, referred to as Smallholder, by choosing to by local or regional foodstuffs. Supermarkets base all or most of their policies on profitability. If the consumers choose to buy local or regional products as opposed to national or transnational brands, then supermarkets will choose to stock more local or regional goods.
Who or what is jonolan? Jonolan is a strange and opinionated soul who’s arrogant enough to have chosen to present his thoughts, rantings, ravings and general musing and brain dumps on an eclectic grouping of topics on this blog for your perusal and hopefully edification.
Jonolan’s political leanings are far to the Right on some issues and equally far to the Left on others. In areas of foreign policy he favors isolationism in the vein of walk softly but carry a big stick. On social issues he favors a more liberal view that follows the guidelines of Do what thou wilt shall be the whole Law and An it harm none, do as thou wilt.
Essentially jonolan harbors and espouses – often pedantically – the idea that governments should concentrate their efforts on those things that will most benefit their populations but should not become involved in interpersonal, social or religious matters except to provide and manage a common framework of legal interdependancies – contracts and other binding agreements – and to ensure that nether The Peace nor individuals’ rights are violated due to skirmishes between antagonistic subgroups within that government’s population.
This blog is designed to be a venue where jonolan can present his ideas for people to read and comment on. Topics presented here will be eclectic to say the least and totally random to speak more truthfully. The bulk of the subject matter will probably be on: politics, ethics and morality, social and cultural issues, religion, and various environmental issues. There will also undoubtedly be forays into: technology, science, blogging, books, music, movies and television since these things do much to shape people’s views on most issues base and grand.
Comments on- and discussion of any and all articles on this blog are not only allowed but strongly encouraged. This is especially true for those readers who disagree with the ideas presented herein.
