Polar bear cub appears in Devon

Exeter, UK: a polar bear cub is spotted in a glass of orange juice.

Copper Beech associate Damian Houston had a endangered species surprise this evening when a polar bear cub appeared to surface in his glass of fresh orange juice.

"Imagine my suprise," said the man formerly known as the Diet Detective (download his e-book Naked Nutrition at www.thedietdetective.co.uk )."It's not every day your night cap is an ice cap."

However, as server Carl Munson pointed out: "Far from this being a polar cola, it's simply a citric coincidence - a slice of lemon, polar bearing witness to man's impact on the natural world".

About Me

It's easy for me to speak in riddles,
it's easy for me to sing,
it's easy for me to excite,
but it's hard for me to be me.

I spoke so much - many of my lunches got cold,
I talked about everything: dance, dungeons and gold,
I wrote endless letters and read Tarot cards,
I whispered in theatres, and shouted in back-yards,

It seems I've done it all, yet I want to yell,
to sob, even scream this something I cannot tell.

I slept under the stars in a desert heat,
I danced in a crowd to the trance beat,
I closed my eyes and found Palaces I seek,
But the vision of my Self remained bleak.

I invited Love, come and flow through me,
I called for Light, to shine on my fears,
I flirted with Foolishness, it was worth a try,
But still I knew less and less - Who Am I…

Spanish farmers modernize water control

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_hi_te/techbit_spain_digital_irrigation



VALENCIA, Spain - The Moorish invaders who once ruled Spain brought with them a clever irrigation system that helped turn arid land into verdant fields. A millennium later it is still largely in use, and Spain remains one of Europe's breadbaskets.
ADVERTISEMENT But after years of chronic drought coupled with vastly increased water use, not to mention worrying climatic change, farm groups have realized it's high time for change.
Spain's federation of irrigators, known as Fenacore, is promoting an initiative to computerize Spain's irrigation system by 2010, connecting some 500,000 farmers to an irrigation network headquartered outside Madrid.
The scheme should allow valuable water to be monitored and controlled by computer, drop by precious drop.
"We're jumping from the 13th century to the 21st century," said Juan Valero, Fenacore's secretary general.
While computer-assisted irrigation is not new, Fenacore believes no other country is organizing it at a national level. So far 200,000 farmers have signed up for the project, Valero said.
"The only way to manage water is to measure how much enters each channel, and computer technology is the best way to do this," he said.
Farmers are being encouraged to move away from outdated, wasteful Moorish-style flood irrigation systems toward drip and dispersion irrigation. They are also asked to lay highly efficient telecommunications cables alongside main water conduits so that the irrigation grid can be monitored from a national computer center.
"In almost half of Spain, the irrigation technique used is flooding, which uses up to three or four times more than the water that is necessary," Environment Minister Cristina Narbona said recently.
Fenacore estimates computerized irrigation will mean up to 20 percent water savings.

The Copperbeech trees- some photographs

How Change Is Wrought:

First Through Education
By John Chuckman
A number of thoughtful American readers have asked what might be done about the problems I've described as disturbing the planet. This is a daunting request, because the problems are part of the warp and woof of a gigantic, complex society.

http://www.counterpunch.org/chuckmanchange.html

Is Protest Music Dead?

Music used to be the dominant voice against war. Now it's easier to shut up and get paid. What's really going on?

Opposing war hasn't always been a popular position, but it has created some great music. During the Vietnam era, songs like Edwin Starr's "War," Jimi Hendrix's cover of "All Along the Watchtower," Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" and "Wars of Armageddon," Jimmy Cliff's "Vietnam," Country Joe and the Fish's "Fixing to Die Rag," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" turned defiance into a raging, soaring, brave and melancholic gestures of community.

Read on http://www.counterpunch.org/changprotestmusic.html

A language of life

Medicine rarely looks at what really contributes to depression and the kinds of violence we have on the planet. My understanding is that people get depressed on account of how they are trained or educated to think. I try to show people how to transform that thinking into a language of life. — Marshall Rosenberg

(click the link to find out more about non-violent communication)