This has been hanging fire for a while.  I started it on the date listed on the post--the 16th, I think.  It is now the 27th.  The last three weeks have been hell on any routine.  I am really tired of the political scene.  I was getting sick of it before Senator Clinton 'suspended' her campaign and the feeling has only intensified since.  Medical appointments have thrown any typical schedules into chaos.  And the house cleaning spirit has finally moved us to a major reorganization of our living room.  The spirit doesn't move often but when it does it is best to answer the call.  As a result we did little for a day and a half except clean and rearrange furniture.  We still aren't done because two small and empty bookcases are still in the kitchen waiting for a relative to remember to come and get them.  We started off with, I think, 19 book cases when we moved in almost ten years ago.  We now have 12.  It has been a long process of paring down and getting rid of various things.

Let me see if, after all this time I can remember what I was going to say about the following sites I visited recently.

 Jeneflower has an interesting problem-- 'green burnout.'  I can relate to it somewhat. She feels overwhelmed by the struggle to live a green lifestyle.  She is caught between her children who want to go out for a burger and be like other kids whose parents are not so particular and desperately wanting to do even more to achieve her goals of sustainable and green living. I think a major difficulty is balancing good intentions with a common sense recognition of limitations.  I can't implement many of the suggestions I read simply because of my situation.  I can't grow very much of my own vegetables because I live in a rented unit and have only a 12x12 slab of fenced in concrete behind my house.  I do what I can with pots and look forward to my own home-grown tomatoes soon.  We limit our driving, our air-conditioning, and heating.  We have started cutting the power to our tv/vcr/cable box and our computers at night. Simplegreenworld provides a nice solution to the doldrums of green burnout: list all the things you are doing to accomplish your goals of living greener, more simply, what ever.  I looked at the list and saw many of the things I have started doing and noticed several that are stumbling blocks for me as well. 

Take a look at this new tomdispatch post.  I remember a little about the North Korean famine of the 1990s.  Very little because there was very little information available through the news.  Most of what I saw focused on the draconian measures the autocratic, authoritarian, repressive and Communist government took to meet the crisis.  Often the stories implied that the government directly caused the crisis.  Instead, this author indicates that the crisis was caused by a confluence of environmental, agricultural, and climate conditions and that the North Koreans were 'the canary in the mine.'  It is worth thinking about.

I have seen this article on several blogs.  The project is interesting and reminiscent of some stories about urban gardening and 'guerilla gardening' I have seen recently.  I looked for community gardens locally but haven't found any yet.  

There are times when the various bloggers converge on issues.  Another new tomdispatch post looks at attempts to renew uranium mining in the west, a theme that has come up frequently on Native Unity.  I wonder how many others are as concerned and skeptical about Senator McCain's proposal to build 45 new nuclear power plants.