Hard work? Hate it!
Here near observatory there are a bunch of people trying to live a simple life of organic farming and cow manure - I met one of them who seems inspired by Hinduism, and whose 'utopian' horizon is severely constrained by a deep ecology inspired belief in the need to live a 'simple life'. The horror, the horror!
There's a tantalizing bit of the 1844 Manuscripts I quite like:
"If we characterize communism itself -- which because of its character as negation of the negation, as appropriation of the human essence which is mediated with itself through the negation of private property, is not yet the true, self-generating position [Position], but one generated by private property... [Here, the corner of the page has been torn away, and only fragments on the six sentences remain, rendering it impossible to understand.]" - I love this hint at communism as something which Marx is grasping at, but knows he cannot see from his vantage point in capitalist society. And the loss of that corner of the page just emphasises the incompleteness of the thought...
And a little later:
"The supersession of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human senses and attributes;"
Bugger all that living life simply crap! So, yes, let's not idolize gardening or manual labourer, but the point I'm also trying to get at is that it is sometimes possible, and desireable, to step outside the frenzied movement of money which constitutes our dominant culture. Such 'steps outside' are always provisional and contradictory in this world, and we need to keep 'one foot planted in reality' - but having said that, I don't think we should knock the desire to grab a breather.
And let's please not idolize McDonalds fries! Surely someone must have a recipe for making as good fries at home?
>
> i have a good recipe for getting rid of the pests that i'll share
> --listerine and epsom salts as i recall (tho probably bad for something,
> somewhere huh?)-- in addition to companionable planting. *sigh* oh i miss
> that garden with marigolds and narcissus all around it and up and down the
> rows in various places. :(
Companion planting is great - we haven't had too much of a pest problem, except for wooly aphids on the olive tree (removed using meths), cattapillars and snails (picked off and squished). Our garden is only about 15m by 5m - that would be about 50feet by 15feet - so a bit of wandering around and pottering is enough to keep it going.
The companion planting book we've got is 'Carrots love tomatoes' by Louise Riotte. Its got an anecdotal feel, but the advice seems to have worked.
>
> if you dig into the ground around here you hit water and sand pretty fast
> from what i can tell.
Pity! The Cape Flats, where most of Cape Town's people live, is pretty much an ex-beach - luckily our soil close to Table Mountain is much better.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844 OpenPGP: 1024D/0517502B : DE5B 6EAA 28AC 57F7 58EF 9295 6A26 6A92 0517 502B