BENEFIT SHOW FOR ASMITA!

As explained this show a breifly in an earlier post but everything is finilazed now. On Saturday March 13th, 2010 7pm @ Linden Heights Church 9914 Harford Road, Parkville, Md 21234 There will be a Benefit show from Asmita to pay for her surgery. I explained Asmitas conditions in a post below so if you are interested, read that. The cost of the show is $5 and all of the money will go straight to her. There will also be a bake sale and all of the money made from that bake sale will go to her as well. She needs $500 and i know that we can come together as a community to help our sister who is suffering across the world. Bands that are playing:

Sadness Gardens Happiness
The Human Excuse
Birthmarks
Monster Medication
Kyle Haeberle & Big Ron Duo

Please come out to contribute to a little girl's health and support local music!

A flyer for this show will be posted very soon

How Cows (Grass-Fed Only) Could Save the Planet!

Becoming vegan or vegetarian is the biggest way that you can help the environment. The animals that we slaughter use enormous amounts of food, land, water, and many other resources. If we come overcome the greed of our taste buds, we would be able to have an excess of land for hopefully organic farming!

For those of you who do not have the will power or simply do not choose to be vegan or vegetarian, this article is for you. I hold no judgement or hatred towards you at all, it is your choice not mine. But because we do not see where our food comes from, the circumstances it comes to be food, and its impact on the earth and others you may be going against strong personal morals you weren't even aware you were destroying.

Read this article from Time:


On a farm in coastal Maine, a barn is going up. Right now it's little more than a concrete slab and some wooden beams, but when it's finished, the barn will provide winter shelter for up to six cows and a few head of sheep. None of this would be remarkable if it weren't for the fact that the people building the barn are two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country: Eliot Coleman wrote the bible of organic farming, The New Organic Grower, and Barbara Damrosch is the Washington Post's gardening columnist. At a time when a growing number of environmental activists are calling for an end to eating meat, this veggie-centric power couple is beginning to raise it. "Why?" asks Coleman, tromping through the mud on his way toward a greenhouse bursting with December turnips. "Because I care about the fate of the planet."

Ever since the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a 2006 report that attributed 18% of the world's man-made greenhouse-gas emissions to livestock — more, the report noted, than what's produced by transportation — livestock has taken an increasingly hard rap. At first, it was just vegetarian groups that used the U.N.'s findings as evidence for the superiority of an all-plant diet. But since then, a broader range of environmentalists has taken up the cause. At a recent European Parliament hearing titled "Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, argued that reducing meat consumption is a "simple, effective and short-term delivery measure in which everybody could contribute" to emissions reductions.

And of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than the ones that moo. Cows not only consume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock; they also produce more methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — than other animals do. "If your primary concern is to curb emissions, you shouldn't be eating beef," says Nathan Pelletier, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., noting that cows produce 13 to 30 lb. of carbon dioxide per pound of meat.

So how can Coleman and Damrosch believe that adding livestock to their farm will help the planet? Cattleman Ridge Shinn has the answer. On a wintry Saturday at his farm in Hardwick, Mass., he is out in his pastures encouraging a herd of plump Devon cows to move to a grassy new paddock. Over the course of a year, his 100 cattle will rotate across 175 acres four or five times. "Conventional cattle raising is like mining," he says. "It's unsustainable, because you're just taking without putting anything back. But when you rotate cattle on grass, you change the equation. You put back more than you take."

It works like this: grass is a perennial. Rotate cattle and other ruminants across pastures full of it, and the animals' grazing will cut the blades — which spurs new growth — while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. The plant's roots also help maintain soil health by retaining water and microbes. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmosphere.

Compare that with the estimated 99% of U.S. beef cattle that live out their last months on feedlots, where they are stuffed with corn and soybeans. In the past few decades, the growth of these concentrated animal-feeding operations has resulted in millions of acres of grassland being abandoned or converted — along with vast swaths of forest — into profitable cropland for livestock feed. "Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, transportation," says Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. "Grass-fed beef has a much lighter carbon footprint." Indeed, although grass-fed cattle may produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals, as anyone who has felt the gastric effects of eating broccoli or cabbage can attest), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1953692,00.html#ixzz0e1CJevP9

WHAT CAN WE DO FOR HAITI!!!????

I am currently collecting supplies from people who are willing to give. If you have any supplies that you want to send to Haiti but are not sure how to get it there, send me an email.

I have a friend who is going to Haiti in 4 weeks and he will take as many supplies that i give to him. This assures the supplies going straight to the people, rather than going through an organization.

Also Please pass the word that if people want to give money to Haiti, here is a way to get the most bang for your buck! Alison Thompson, will be going to Haiti. Go to: www.thethirdwavemovie.com to learn all about the 14 months Alison spent rebuilding a ...village in Sri Lanka post-tsunami. She also spent 9 months at Ground Zero post-9/11. Alison will take every penny with her to Haiti on Sun Jan 16 and will use it to buy water, food, and medical supplies. She'll work 18 hours/day. You can tell your friends to go to Paypal, enter her address:alisonthompson123@yahoo.com, then they can pay with credit cards if they don't have a PayPal account. Thank you! This is much more direct than Red Cross-no red tape!

Disaster Relief Certification

If anyone is interest in being certified in disaster relief and obtain a UMCOR ERT badge...

Come to St.Johns United Methodist Church 216 w.seminary ave lutherville, Md 21093

February 13th, 2010 from 8am until 4pm.

Lunch and materials are included.

Cost per person is $25.

TO register call 4108253969 or email pastorjaychris@yahoo.com


After the disturbing news about Haiti, it is important to know how to assist communities in early days after a major disaster. I have a strong feeling that there will be more natural disasters, just like the earthquake in Haiti, all over the world. We have abused the Earth for far to long and this is simply reciprocity running its coarse.

UPCOMING EVENTS

MARCH 13th, 2010 - BENEFIT SHOW FOR ASMITA!(read post below) Linden Heights Church Baltimore, Md, 21234. Starts at 7! cost $5(all money will go toward Asmitas surgery)Sadness Gardens Happiness, The Human Excuse, Birthmarks, Monster Medication, and Kyle Haeberle will be playing.

March 20^th,2010 – Participating in a National march & rally in D.C. We will march together to say “No Colonial-type Wars and Occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine!" We will march together to say "No War Against Iran!” We will march together to say “No War for Empire Anywhere!

March 27th^th,2010 – Volunteering at Eastern Family Resource Center homeless shelter for women and children. Jobs vary from serving and cooking food to entertaining and supporting children.

April 10^th, 2010 – Planting trees in various communities and parks in Baltimore. Locations have not yet been determined. If you have any ideas please send an email.

April 24^th, 2010 – 1^st meeting/potluck at John’s house. Send us an email for the address.

If you would like to be part of this organization and participate in these events please send an email to sadnessgardens@gmail.com

If you have ideas about anything at all, please send them to us via email and we will support you!

IZILWANE

Izilwane is the Zulu word for animal. It is also a project happening right now in South Africa. It is sponsored by the non-profit organization Perception International and the Global Diversity Film Project. This project has a research and film making team currently in South Africa. They are living with Shamans and documenting it all. The main focus of Izilwane is to shatter "reality" ,as most of us know it, and open our heads and hearts to the though that animals have many things to teach us about preventing extinction of their own species and our own. Also focusing on the white lions and other sacred endangered animals, and the meaning of their appearances.Izilwane is pushing for the connection between humans and animals so we can re-establish our relationship with mother earth. Just recently, I have been working with Izilwane and the project director. Please contact me for ways you can help spread knowledge and help Izilwane obtain their goals. Go to izilwane.org for more info.