Watch “The Future of Food” on Netflix

If you have Netflix and broadband the documentary “The Future of Food” is now available for streaming online. My wife is pregnant and has refused to watch (she fears she won’t be capable of eating anything if she does). This is next on my list of things to watch (alone I guess).

Christ Church Moscow has a Podcast

I think this is new, not sure. Anyway here is the link

Christ Church Moscow Podcast

I.O.U.S.A.

Here is a film I am interested in seeing.

Director Patrick Creadon, who made The New York Times crossword puzzle fun on film in his documentary “Wordplay,” calls “I.O.U.S.A.” a primer for ordinary Americans on the financial state of an economy saddled by a rapidly growing federal debt.

Click here to read the Reuters article about the film. This is the I.O.U.S.A. website.

Build a cardboard spaceship.

This looks like a fun project!

PBS Frontline – Growing Up Online

I know many of my posts begin with “this is worth watching/listening to” and I apologise for its frequent use, but I must use it once again. This is worth watching and besides you probably paid for part of it. This is an amazing study of culture and technology.

Quick update, I was just on Drudge and saw this story which is relevant if you watched the program.

Social Network site’s linked to town’s seven suicides

Money As Debt

This video was fun to watch and I learned why the current monetary/banking system requires continuous economic growth in order to keep running (and why deflation is such a potential monster!).

I could not find any critiques of the movie, please leave a comment if you know if any, I am sure there must be a few. The creator’s website is found here.

An explanation for Ron Paul’s popularity?

Source: Imprimis, February 1975

“Yet I believe that the new anarchism will attract growing attention in circles both intelligent and free from the taint of utopianism. For the degeneration of the modern western State has surely not yet run its course. ‘We shall tax and tax and tax and spend and spend and spend’ [7] and the end of this process is not in sight. Inflation will again and again be declared an enemy, but at the first whiff of corrective recession, it will be embraced as a friend and its rate will accelerate. The State will intervene more and more in the market and the citizen will find that his control over his own life will become less and less. In their bewilderment most citizens will acquiesce in a totalitarian solution, thus fastening the State even more tightly around their necks; but many will be attracted to the belief that the State is indeed as the neo-anarchists describe it, and is indeed incurable.”

[7] Per Harry Hopkins, President Franklin Roosevelt’s confidant and alter ego

My economic stimulus package (part of it)

If I made a ten loaves of bread in my kitchen and gave them away to my neighbors I have broken no laws, but if I charge a penny for each loaf I have probably broken multiple laws. This story is an example of a women who was reported to the “authorities” for selling homemade chicken salad. Does the word homemade even have any meaning when you see it in the grocery store? I am sure the laws and restrictions for this sort of activity vary from local to local but there are likely restrictions of some sort almost everywhere.

Did you know that the CBO recommends raising food stamp benefits as a method of “economic stimulus”? You can read Greg Mankiw’s thoughts on that here.

Well on to my economic stimulus package. I believe that if you lifted all restrictions on the preparation and sale of food (laws and taxes) and allowed one neighbor to sell to another without restriction you would see an amazing boom of enterprise. We bought a bread machine last night, we are also buying a wheat grinder. The investment will be over $300. I am positive that even my 5 year old is ready and willing to begin her bread making business and I am sure she could single handily make a return on our investment in a few months, and she would love to do it. This plan would have a greater impact than raising food stamp benefits although the processed food industry might not be too happy about it.

Unemployment is low, inflation is low, wages are rising, this economy is on the move!

“Unemployment is low, inflation is low, wages are rising, this economy is on the move! (crowd cheers)” – President Bush on the State of the Economy 2007

The more I learn about Fractional Reserve Banking, Federal Reserve policies, inflation, and economics in general, the more I see how easy the present banking collapse was to predict. I have found a number of blogs that were sounding the alarm more than a year ago. Read the words above and ask yourself if the man that said them actually believed what he was saying? I can’t believe he did. The BBC put together two short 20 minute programs on the current banking collapse which is both informative and interesting to listen to. If you want a good overview of some of the issues this is a good place to start.

BBC Debt Threat: Credit Monster Part 1, Any Escape Part 2

Here are some questions to think about as talk of recession looms.

• Why do economic stimulus packages always require the govt. to spend more money? Where does the money come from? Aren’t we are already spending money we don’t have (budget deficit)? How is spending money we don’t have good? If it is good why not double or triple the current spending proposals, won’t that be better?
• Why is the president visiting Saudi Arabia?
• Why does Wall Street always want the interest rate lower? If this is so good for the economy why not drop it to zero?
• Name the last Republican president that had a balanced budget or shrank the size of govt.

Some great youtube finds tonight…

Just going to throw out a bunch of videos I found tonight. Really enjoyed them. A few of them seem to be movies a guy by the name of Les Blank made (some additional clips which I have not previewed here). Some look pretty good. If you like garlic, colorful people, dancing and folk music you will love these.

Sprout Wings and Fly

Dry Wood

Spend It All

Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers

Garlic Man

Donkey Dance

Folk Art Shootout

Arkansas Traveller – Tommy Jarrell

Cleanth Brooks – A History of Southern Review

This old lecture from ISI by Cleanth Brooks was an enjoyable listen. Cleanth spoke about his early years as one of the editors of Southern Review.

The topic I must confess is a highly interesting one to me and poor as my memory has become in these later years, some of the events that occurred in those earlier years, still grip my mind with an intense strength. – Cleanth Brooks

I love that description. I think I know what he means by this.

Note:  The introduction is about 15 minutes and the audio cuts out before he is finished.

If you enjoy listening to Cleanth you may also appreciate these free interviews from Cumberland Books.

Distributism Without the Cow

Excerpts derived from ‘Distributism Without the Cow @ The ChesterBelloc Mandate‘.

The fundamental idea of Distributism is economic independence and economic freedom for families, with the government in a subsidiary and supportive role. It is the concept of Democracy applied to the field of economics. It’s the question of who is in control of our work.

A succinct definition of Distributism. I note that many moving in the direction of agrarianism are students of economics, family centered, and people who value freedom among other things. Much work would have to be done to define the word freedom and I am sure I have not the words nor the wisdom to do such a thing. Suffice it to say that the word freedom is worthy of thoughtful consideration as is its counterpart slavery.

The Distributist believes workers are most free when they own their own tools and are their own bosses. They are least free when they hire out for a wage and work at the command and sufferance of someone else who owns the tools, machinery, and land.

I would add that the right to own property is a very important component of freedom. Property taxes (rents) are an infringement upon the actual ownership. Many families not far from us pay the city $20,000 a year for the “right” to “own” a home.

Our idea of “The American Way of Life,” is wrapped up in the whole notion of a “Standard of Living.” The “Living Standard” is a measure of consumer spending. It is concerned with how many things we can buy, how expensively we are able to live, what luxuries we might afford.
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We live in a society that has enshrined the seven deadly sins as the seven lively ideals. I don’t mean that these sins are committed, I mean these sins are recommended.

The article ends with a list of 10 commandments for the Urban Distributionist. Please read the entire article if this has been of interest to you.

Two ISI Lectures by Rod Dreher – Crunchy Cons and Wendell Berry

I discovered the ISI lectures a few days ago. At present I am enjoying these two lectures by Rod Dreher author of Crunchy Cons. Doug Wilson had a few posts here on the book. These lectures that they are worth going back and making a few notes so if you don’t want to listen twice keep pen in hand.

Push back or step out of the way, but just don’t sit there!

“Well, it might seem like it isn’t very much, but it really is. When you figure out what direction you are being pushed, push back.” – Doug Wilson, a short parable.

I found the parable helpful. My interests usually arise from the discovery that I (and you) are being “pushed” as Wilson would put it (corralled might be a better word). Christmas with family resulted in a few discussions which ended with something like “but what can you do?”. My response was usually “educate myself” or “teach my children about these things”. Thanks to Pastor Wilson I realize that one end is that our family is better equipped to push back. When we can’t push back we try to find ways to step out of the way.

In line with this thinking you may also enjoy my post ‘William Remington was something of a solitary idealist.’

‘Indoctrinate U’ and a few comments on Marxism

This is a short trailer for a film called ‘Indoctrinate U‘. I have a copy of one of the precursors to this film which was released on the internet a few years ago and I am looking forward to seeing the final cut. I believe one of the interviews in the film is with a economics professor from Bucknell with Marxist sympathies (funny interview as I recall). At the time I had no idea that Marx’s ideas were taken so seriously within Economic departments at major universities.

The other night I listened to an mp3 by Gary North on Marx called ‘The Marx Nobody Knows‘ which I recommend (recorded in 1988). He makes some very insightful remarks regarding the packaging of Marxist thought into Liberation Theology among other things.

Finally, a quote from Chapter III of Human Action.

What induced Marx to invent his ideology-doctrine was the wish to sap the prestige of economics. He was fully aware of his impotence to refute the objections raised by the economists to the practicability of the socialist schemes.
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His own economic ideas are hardly more than a garbled version of Ricardianism.
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His only intention was to destroy the reputation of economic teachings which he was unable to refute by means of logic and ratiocination.
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Marxian polylogism is an abortive makeshift to salvage the untenable doctrines of socialism. Its attempt to substitute intuition for ratiocination appeals to popular superstitions. But it is precisely this attitude that places Marxian polylogism and its offshoot, the so-called “sociology of knowledge,” in irreconcilable antagonism to science and reason.

The whole chapter is worth reading. Marxism as an anti-rationalistic subversion of economics, not another valid competing school of economic thought. We should be concerned with sending our children to any university which legitimizes Marx’s economic theories (your options may be more limited than you know). The points made about polylogism are also very important. I just bookmarked this article on the topic for reading later, it looks like a good overview.

Interview: Future of Food creator Deborah Garcia

I am trying to get my wife a bit more excited about our garden, this interview should help. I have not seen the Future of Food yet but I am eager to see it after watching this. I don’t agree with everything that is being said here but there is plenty that I do.

The Business of Being Born

Found what looks to be a good blog tonight and while looking around found another post on this blog about an upcoming documentary called The Business of Being Born. It looks very interesting, watch the preview, warning typical National Geographic sort of women giving birth scenes here and there, not suitable for all audiences).

Finally another site here for you pregnant moms to check out (hey that would be my wife!).

The American Child Photographers Charity Guild

The American Child Photographers Charity Guild is a non-profit organization of child photographers dedicated to serving children in need and their families. Please visit their site to learn more about what this organization does for families. Also go here and navigate to the ‘Heart and Soul’ portfolio to see some very moving photographs.

Last month I purchased a Canon Rebel XTi with a decent 50mm f1.4 lense. I am not much of a photographer but I am learning and I am teaching my kids. The sort of work the Charity Guild is doing is just the type of thing I would love to see my children doing with their talents someday. So far my eldest daughter has shown the greatest amount of interest and it is something I will continue to encourage and support. This sort of thing fits right in with the vision conveyed in the film ‘Return of the Daughters’ (see my post about that here).