In this blog entry I wrote about the dust bowl in California and how plants should be planted on the median between the I-5 lanes and on either side of the road to help cut down on the soil erosion that causes the dust bowl effect. Between the fields there should be lines of trees as well. The added benefit is that it (is hypothesized) that it rains naturally more often on trees.

The fields of course should be left to the farmers (corporations) to plant trees between their fields, because after all it is their property, after all, however I am sure they will demand some kind of compensation for growing additional trees that will benefit the most from.

We have extreme problems with current farming techniques. Major corporate farming techniques are derived from the perspective that greed is good and the commons must be exploited at all costs because all resources are limited. The reality is nature is all forgiving and when we farm with the objective there is plenty for all as in this wonderful TED talk, everyone benefits, not only the environment, other animals and people as well.

We must move towards the perspective there is plenty.

If we started planting drought tolerant plants, such as the above date palm, or the following plant that likes salt water or non-edible plants like Nerium which are extremely easy to grow from cuttings but extremely toxic or Salvation Jane which is also toxic but edible by live stock in a pinch and makes good ground cover. Jasmine is also quite good ground cover but not so easy to strike from a cutting but is edible. Geraniums are super easy to strike (just break a branch off and stick a few of the nodes in the ground), edible as well and extremely drought tolerant.

There are plenty of plants that are edible or produce edible fruits that are also drought tolerant. Edible is useful not only for humans but also for farmed animals and wild life.

But ideally we want to grow plants to heal the earth and ourselves. Our selfishness and greed is hurting ourselves mainly.

I believe we have to be taught greed but then someone said haven't I seen the feeding frenzies of wild animals? Animals know scarcity too but they are not in the same position we are in where we can learn that if there is plenty for all we can turn our damaged planet back into a paradise.

When someone finally wanted to publish J K Rowling's first Harry Potter book they wanted her to use initials because the publisher didn't think boys, who they considered to be the principle audience, would want to read a book written by a woman.

Ouch! and people think that feminism does nothing for them anymore.

How did we train boys to think women have nothing of interest to say? Fortunately many boys proved the publishers wrong. But how many other industries believe equally ridiculous things?

Australian Aborigines don't like to discuss their dead because they feel we are trapping their souls on this plane by doing so. The result is that they are effacing themselves from history.

This is something men have been doing forever to women. Who knew women had a long history in the sciences? How many other women have been erased from history? Matilda, William the Conquerer's Queen wasn't even included in the indices on historical books on the subject of William, yet she wielded her own power.

Men often behave shamefully when it comes to women in politics, as was the case when Australia had a female prime minister, Japan, and Hillary Clinton in the US along with Michelle Bachmann and her shoes, eyes etc. where the topic of conversation instead of discussing her politics. No man has ever had his shoes discussed in politics.  Also we have men in politics talk about what is and isn't rape. These are the respective countries elected representatives and they act like women have 'girls germs'. These men demean their positions by acting like young boys, not adult men.

This is appalling behavior of men in politics and as such it is clear men shouldn't be involved in politics if they cannot act with dignity and treat women with respect. Men exhibit too much appalling emotion as the following indicates:

But the sexism doesn't end with 'make me a sandwich' or 'get back in the kitchen'. The sexism includes not respecting the dangers of hurricanes when they have a female name.

And women being told they are the sinners when they are raped while attending religious colleges. But this isn't the only sexism in schools, girls are sent home because their bra strap is visible and it might distract the boys. This is primarily saying boys education is more important than a girls and boys can't control themselves so girls need to wear burqa's to protect boys so boys won't get out of control...

That is really teaching the boys they really don't need to restrain themselves. How on earth can we expect the next generation of boys to be leaders if we teach them its okay to not control themselves? What are we teaching girls? That you are really only there for boys? This is outrageous. Boys must know how to control themselves and girls have a right to exist for her own purposes.

There are other subtle sexist attitudes like a man will friend me on facebook and assume I have nothing better to do than contact him and/or call me 'dear' rather than bother to remember my name and/or will ask me my age, like I might just be eligible to be his love interest if he finds me pleasant enough. How arrogant.

I am not here for your purposes. I am here because I want to be here and I have other stuff I can be doing. People who want to be a part of my life put effort into attracting my interest.

Its the same with being a mother, people think women have nothing better to do than be a mother. That once she's had a baby she will automatically love it and put her life on hold for it and then expect the woman not to resent the baby if forced into being a mother when she does not want to be one. Yes she can put a baby up for adoption but the foster system is full of unloved kids already and people will gasp at the woman if she does: how can you possibly think of putting your child up for adoption!!!

There is so much sexism in the system that this is not the time to hang up 'feminism' as no longer relevant.

And none of the: but the court awards custody of children to women over men nonsense. This should be about the children, not the gender of the parents. Men who whine about women getting preferential custody are being selfish.

What I think women need to do is to work together and build communities of women so if one does want to have children, a couple of her female best friends support her while she does so. Or women sharing together the raising of children. They need not be lesbian, just female friends who share the responsibility of raising kids together. Perhaps some of these friends could be both males and females together who are not necessarily lovers.

Women are taught all their lives they need a man to complete them. This is nonsense. What we need is each other.

Nevertheless women give sex to get love and men give love to get sex. Women are raised to expect a man to fulfill their needs. We all need affection and men go have sex with a prostitute when they need a dose of affection from a woman if they don't have a current girlfriend. Most prostitutes say a lot of men often only want to talk, or to feel close to someone briefly. This is why escort services are acceptable, because sex isn't assumed although is often implied.

But there shouldn't be this necessary assumption that women should NOT enjoy sex. Why? If a woman enjoys sex she's a slut? Women evolved to have orgasms as well, why shouldn't she enjoy something her body provides her? I have no issue with women working in the sex industry. Its ridiculous women should NOT enjoy sex. Its teen girls who have sex with boys I feel sorry for, who get pregnant based on 2mins of pleasure for the boy and no pleasure at all for her. No one even considers that women should enjoy sex in the US. And just because a woman enjoys sex it doesn't mean she is always ready and wanting sex.

We keep attacking those weaker than us rather than making those with power accountable. Part of this is a result of what the Milgrim experiment shows, we want to please authority and I assume those in power, men. Seldom does society attack men for any reason yet it seems that it is mostly men that cause our problems. It is men who run Wall St, it is men who are the CEOs of BIG OIL and other negligent corporations, it is men who run Monsanto and start the wars, it is men who are the lawyers, who do the raping and murdering. It is men who run government. I know not all men do it but as a society we generalize about women yet we don't generalize about men. Not until we control those with power will we be able to start repairing society.

It is time we stop trying to control women because women are already under control. It is time we start controlling some of the men.

It's time we live a different way and this war on women is part of how broken society is.

I did take photos when I first saw these signs in 2009. But when I recently drove down the I-5 these signs were gone and new ones had taken their place.

I planned to write this back then but I went back to my urban area and completely forgot all about it.

What I noticed first was the land between the divided road had no trees on it nor did either side of the road.

The first law of drought prone land is to grow trees. Growing trees cuts down on soil erosion and has the added benefit of attracting rain. Strangely enough it rains over trees more than other places. Hmm. The added benefit of trees growing in the area in the center of the divided road is that it cuts down on glare from on-coming traffic for those who drive at night.

This is something people could do themselves rather than wait for government to do it and I was shocked the farmers weren't doing that themselves since it is in their own best interests to cut down on soil erosion. No doubt you'd need lawyers running interference on planting the trees because the police would sooner or later turn up and ask why people are planting trees. It may be necessary to get government approval but the land belongs to US citizens after all and citizens and legal residents should be allowed to plant plants if they want.

However this time the trees were being bulldozed and the drought was much worse. The trees were bulldozed out by the roots to maximize the harm to the earth and definitely kills the tree. I can only assume this is the scorched earth approach to corporate farming. And it seems also to have a note of petulance. My husband quipped, they want water served up to them at the tax payers expense.

Nevertheless we need water in California and there are no water restrictions on people living in the big urban areas. Surely we should be building solar powered desalination plants however we have a problem with all the water used for fracking is being dumped off the coast. Will that water be useful for drinking? Do you want to fill your swimming pool with water that has been used for fracking?

I can't believe Gov Jerry Brown allowed fracking in California when there is a drought. I can't even begin to understand this. We can't drink oil and plants will die if watered with it, it is time we cut our dependency on oil. It is time that a ban was placed on selling non-hybrid or electric cars. When I was in Yosemite they had hybrid buses. It is clear the technology has come of age.

Water is our priority, not oil.

Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken objects with gold, silver or platinum. The idea being something is more beautiful when it has a history.

What I particularly like about this is something that you have poured parts of your life into, such as a ceramic dish, which you have served guests and friends at special events, was part of your life: in that you saw it every day, washed it, cleaned it, cared for it, if it falls and breaks it can be repaired and so you can add this to the story of your life, a beautiful treasured object now has even added value.

In the west we know what to do with beautiful objects when they are broken, we throw them away to become landfill if we have enough money, and just buy a brand new set of crockery.

We live in a totally disposable society. We throw away lounge suites when they are no longer fit our decor. We buy new jeans, new eyeshadow, new dresses, shoes and sunglasses. Every home has a trash can, every household knows when the trash is collected and weeks revolve around this phenomena. Whole industries exist based on throwing stuff away. Trash bags are bought just to make it easier to throw stuff out. We tear up the planet so we can get the oil to make the plastics only to throw them away. Industry makes all this packing that is often only used once, ONCE, before it is trash.

We are trashing the planet to throw stuff away in land-fill.

Some trash is designed to be recycled, so we can sort our trash, and feel a bit better about ourselves.Nature is kind of forgiving and will eventually break down the trash if it doesn't kill all marine life in the process.

But our throw away society doesn't stop and destruction of the planet, its atmosphere, our water or the biosphere, it extends to ourselves.

Industry throws away employees to raise stock prices, and doesn't care who's lives are shattered in the process. Banks foreclose on homes and possessions are confiscated because ownership is more important than the lives of those people the banks must make profits from.

And it even extends to our personal lives. Men sleep around with women and then dispose of them even if they get pregnant. Women have abortions because they can't afford to raise the kids by themselves, and people dispose of friends because we don't like what we are saying. Something that becomes increasingly easy with things like facebook and twitter. I know I am done throwing people away. Kids are tossed out of home when they become too troublesome for some parents.

And even worse we throw away whole classes of people. I was recently driving through the Mojave desert and saw random trailers with rusted out car chassis, an image repeated over and over again. I assume these were the homes of native Americans disposed of to places out of sight.

Some of us are tired of living in a disposable society. Some of us are so sick of the waste and the insane obsession with making a profit that some of us are looking at starting to see the way forward is to work in cooperation with the environment. We need sustainable farming, instead of the scorched earth approach to farming I saw in the California central valley where orchards are pulled up by the roots to exacerbate the dust bowl with the deep drought farmers are experiencing. We need to live in harmony with the environment, somewhat like the native Americans did before we destroyed their way of life. If they remember how they lived perhaps they can teach us how to live again in harmony with the earth.

This planet is our only home, we cannot throw it into landfill, we must take care of it and repair it when it hurts, we have a shared history with it. We must take care of our friends and not discard them. We all need a home and this is it. We cannot throw it away.