Mhaolain's Child, a Renaissance Thinker in a Post-Modern Culture

The Southern Oasis

My hubby drug himself and all his paperwork into the house last night just as I closed the cover on my current project. We both had a long but fulfilling day doing the tasks that we are called to perform. As dinner simmered on the stove, we set about our summer outdoor chores, things like watering the plants and checking the garden's produce. After a month of high temperatures, yesterday brought us a perfect summer's evening -- a cool breeze, 70-something degrees, and just enough clouds for the sunset to look, as my sweet neighbor commented, like a watercolor painting. The three of us sat and talked on the back porch for hours, just enjoying a quiet moment in time, much like I remember my parents and grandparents enjoying when I was a child. The fire flies twinkled, the frogs serenaded, the rabbits hopped, the birds chirped. It was an oasis in the midst of an increasingly trouble-filled era that served to remind me of just Who is really "in charge." And I am very grateful.

Coming Soon: Ciao Bella Pizza da Guglielmo

While I bemoan the loss of my favorite chef from the Destin scene, I celebrate the successes of my favorite Destin Italian restauranteur, Guglielmo. We've known Gug for over 20 years now. His restaurants consistently serve up the best pastas, pizzas, and Italian Secondi this side of Milano.  Over the past decade, Gug has opened variations on his Florida restaurants as far away as Pennsylvania, with other points in between. I'm on pins and needles now because he's expressed an interest in opening his Ciao Bella Pizza restaurant in my own Franklin, TN!

Neighbors, get ready to be wowed. His pizzas reach pizza nirvana. His pastas have perfectly concocted sauces. His calamari is the best you'll ever enjoy. And all in my own backyard. I may never cook again.

Michael Sichel: Chef, Where are You?

When my husband and I plan vacations, one of the most important facets of our planning is deciding which restaurants we will enjoy during those travels. We've eaten delicious foods with celebrity chefs, and we've eaten fabulous offerings at tiny "mom & pop" settings. We've ventured off our itineraries and dropped into pubs and tavernas that have become some of our greatest food memories. However, our ultimate food memories come from the summer of 2008 when we ate in Destin with Chef Michael Sichel.

Week after week, visit after visit, Michael's menus offered a parade of palate-pleasing foods. Not only were the flavors perfect but they also were consistent. From June to October, every bite that traveled from his kitchen and over my palate was perfect. To borrow a phrase from my friend George Grant, Michael's delicious foods ruined me to the offerings of other chefs.

Sometime during the winter season, Michael left Destin. His place in the kitchen was filled by the chef who had originally opened this Destin restaurant. Hmmm. Several restaurants of New Orleans fame have relocated in the Destin area. We've eaten at most of them, trying to find a chef whose work matches that offered by Michael. No luck.

So, Google-bots, find Chef Michael Sichel for me! I'm desperate for some of his Short Ribs, his Risotto, a pizza, a fish. 

Where are you, Chef Michael Sichel?

Cap and Trade, Smoke and Mirrors: A rural cooperative's point of view

Spurred on by the recent activity in the US House of Representatives, several of my young adult friends have asked my thoughts on the idea of Cap and Trade. The following article appeared in the July 2009 issue of The Tennessee Magazine on pages 6 and 7. Written by David Callis, it reports the current status of the legislation under consideration in the Congress from the electric cooperative's point of view:

What Cap and Trade Could do to Your Electric Bill

Update: In a surprise move, House Leadership worked out compromises with Agriculture Committee members and rural concerns, moving the bill to the floor before the July 4th recess. The bill passed 219-212, despite the defection of 44 Democrats, but picking up 8 Republican votes. House Leaders did a lot of arm twisting and compromising to gain passage. The Senate may not take up Climate Change legislation until the fall. The Senate version will likely be less restrictive in carbon emission caps and renewable requirements.

The United States Congress is debating legislation this month that could dramatically increase the cost of your monthly electric bill. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454) could alter forever the way that electricity is generated and consumed in the United States. Climate change legislation is supported by the Obama administration and House and Senate leadership.

Consumer advocates, trade associations and political parties on both sides of the issue have flooded the TV and airwaves, encouraging citizens to contact their Congressman.

Tennessee’s electric cooperatives believe you need to know the facts about the legislation and what it means to you and your monthly electric bill.

Here are the most significant aspects of the bill for the electric utility industry:

• The bill would require carbon emissions to be cut to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 by “capping” the amount that businesses could emit. (Carbon dioxide, also known as CO_2, is a greenhouse gas that builds up in the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, is the largest contributor of CO_2.) The bill creates a federal cap-and-trade system that limits carbon emissions by allowing manufacturers and power companies that emit carbon to buy and trade credits. For example, if a power plant exceeded that level, it would need the correct amount of emission credits to offset the additional carbon emissions. The owner of the plant might have to purchase the additional emission credits, which would be sold, or “traded”, by companies that have extra allowances.
• The bill provides 35 percent of the carbon emission credits as free allowances to utilities; with 30 percent of that total going to local electric distribution companies, specifically to keep prices down. When the cap-and-trade program begins in 2010, the government would auction 15 percent of the allowances and use the proceeds to help some consumers avoid higher energy costs
• The bill would require that 20% of all energy produced would be generated by renewable energy sources by 2020— though 5 percent of that can be met through energy efficiency programs. States could lessen that impact by establishing an 8 percent efficiency requirement, if the initial targets prove too costly.

 

After the committee passed the bill in late May, Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, commended chairmen Waxman and Markey;

"NRECA believes the collegial manner in which the committee members worked to mark up the legislation has produced, step by step, a better bill than the discussion draft released in late March. As I testified in April before the Energy and Commerce Committee, NRECA supports developing affordable, simple, and flexible climate change legislation. However, the bill does not yet meet that test.”

“We greatly appreciate all members of the Energy and Commerce Committee who have worked hard to improve the legislation, and we look forward to continuing to work with members of the jurisdictional committees to further improve the bill and make it a piece of legislation that electric cooperatives and a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives can support.”

Tennessee has two representatives on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Congressman Bart Gordon was involved in committee decisions that helped make the bill less costly to electric co-op members. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn participated during the committee markup, offering proposals that addressed the impact of the legislation on ratepayers.

There is no question that the bill has improved since the first draft. The bill aggressively attacks carbon emissions that are widely believed to cause climate change. The bill also invests in new renewable sources of generation and research and development into cleaner coal technologies.

There is also no question that the bill will increase the cost of electricity in many parts of the nation. Cooperatives will be forced to purchase carbon credits in order to provide enough electricity to service their members. Much work remains before the bill can achieve its stated goals and keep electric bills affordable.

In one of the more concise summaries of the problems with the bill, Mid-American Energy Holdings CEO David Sokol said, "The Waxman-Markey bill is a cap and trade program that will force our customers to pay two expensive costs. First, they will pay the cost of emissions allowances purchased on a complex auction market that will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and second, they will pay the cost of replacing our existing fossil-fuel generation facilities with low-carbon alternatives."

The renewable energy provisions and efficiency provisions have been improved significantly. The renewable energy standard, for example, does not apply to electric cooperatives that sell less than 4,000,000 mwh of electricity per year, exempting most co-ops. Tennessee has one co-op, The Middle Tennessee Electric Membership Corporation, which exceeds that level of sales and could face additional penalties if they don’t meet the renewable standard.

Including temporary free allowances in the bill is a step in the right direction to protecting electric cooperative consumers from unnecessarily increasing electricity bills, but the formula for allocation of free allowances for emission credits is not equitable. The Committee adopted a formula developed by big investor owned utilities, and that formula would not cover the emission credits needed for the coal generation that is vital for rural America. Chairman Waxman has agreed to hold an additional hearing to look at the allocation.

The cap on carbon emissions has been lowered somewhat. However, we believe, as do many members of the committee that they are still overly aggressive in the early years of the program and will need to be lowered.

TECA and NRECA are not opposed to energy legislation that addresses climate change. In fact, we strongly support investments in clean coal technologies that could help us take advantage of an abundant source of energy that exists in our own country. We also support investments that will strengthen our electric grid and create more renewable energy sources, such as solar power and wind turbines.

However, that’s not going to solve all of the nation’s energy problems. Senator Lamar Alexander recently rebutted those that give, “the impression. . .that we can run this big, complex country on electricity from the wind, the sun and the earth. That may be true one day, Alexander said, but it probably will be 30, 40 or even 50 years down the road.”

Congress needs to consider your needs as they work to complete this legislation. We need the flexibility of planning for the future without bankrupting the present. If Congress gets this wrong, you could easily be saddled with a $30 - $50 per month increase in your electric bill – just to pay for the cost of the climate change legislation.

What can you do? Let your congressman know how you feel. Call, e-mail or write and let them know that any climate change legislation needs to be as simple and flexible as possible; but most importantly, it must keep electricity affordable for all of us.

In the end, government doesn’t bear the costs of this bill – you do.

For more information, go to www.ourenergy.coop

Gratitude for an Extraordinarily Ordinary Life

It’s a sultry summer day in Tennessee. My hubby and I have finally caught up on the pressing chores of the day and have settled in the backyard beside the creek. The most exciting thing going on out here is watching my female cardinal defend her spot in the creek that tumbles through our yard. At the pinnacle of “mid-life,” David and I are blessed with good health, relative security, and, most importantly, a wonderful family, particularly our son. Today, I’m even more mindful of the blessings of life because one of our classmates lost his life Thursday. That classmate is Michael Jackson.

As we sit here relaxing in the peace of our quiet Southern backyard, we’re listening to a satellite radio station that is playing, with no interruptions, the music that flowed from Michael Jackson. I can tell you how old both he and we were when he recorded each song that is playing. From going to our first boy-girl parties and dancing to the early tunes of the Jackson 5, to recognizing both the talent and the confusion underneath his and our gawky mid-teen years, and, finally, to coming to his own with Thriller and Billie Jean – all his songs parallel these stages of our lives. As a Motown girl, the music of Michael Jackson is the sound track of most of my life.

Today, I weep for the great talent and notoriety that came to rob my classmate of the vast riches that David and I share, for we live extraordinarily ordinary lives. Lives free to watch birds frolic in the creek, to attend public gatherings like last night’s hockey draft party, to stroll the streets of Europe unnoticed.

Both David and I are fairly recognizable in our own small worlds, but we have no claim to fame. And that, to me, is an extraordinary blessing.

Rest in peace, dear classmate.

Successful Failures

How many things can break in one week? The list has grown to a humorous length. You know the feeling; you just have to laugh or cry, and laughing is much better. After all, it's just stuff, right?

This morning my sweet husband is out splicing the internet cable after we cut it planting new shrubs. This is his third attempt. He's been working for a week on it. Now, however, he's learned a new fact about cable wires that seems to assure success. He's learned so much about wires this week that he would not have known except for his repeated failures to restore the internet service.

My mother, a brilliant woman who isn't afraid to learn new technology even as she approaches her 80s, installed a new modem for her computer this week. Unfortunately, her lack of mobility caused her to insert her programming CD into the wrong slot on her hard drive. But now she's learned more than she'd ever anticipated because of her failed original attempt at loading the CD.

Last week our satellite dishes (yes, we live way out in the county) were hit by lightning. I tried for days to realign and reprogram them. I learned so much about satellite dishes from all my trials and errors. And, indeed, I finally got the dishes to work, but only after I'd made attempt upon attempt that ended in failure.

I love to be consoled by the famous quotes of successful people from history relating to their own failures and successes. One of my favorite quotations was said by one of my favorite men from history, Sir Winston Churchill, "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." Another favorite comes from Henry Ford, "Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely." These great men understood that the only true failure occurs when we give up, when we refuse to try one more time.

I suppose my favorite story of spectacular failures is found in the Scriptures. It is the story of King David. We don't think of him as being a failure because the story of his entire life is one that shows he continued to fall but get back up again. In one of his great poems, Psalm 51, he confesses one his most spectacular failures, that of his affair with the wife of one of his generals, a general David subsequently has murdered. Here David looks his great failure full in its ugly face and vows, with God's great mercy, to rise up from that failure and pursue a successful course of service of sacrificial living according to God's plan, not his own plan:

Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit.

My own failures seldom bring physically broken bones but they often cause emotionally broken bones of heart and mind. But, like King David, I can "hear joy and gladness" as my bones rejoice when I rise from failure and aim once again for success.

Beauty off the Routine Path

 

I spent the day with my parents yesterday. Usually, I jump onto the interstate highway and zoom down to maximize the time I have to spend with them. We share lunch, run errands together, work on maintenance issues, and end the visit with a long talk about family history. Then, I blaze my way through town back to interstate and zip back to Franklin.

Yesterday was different, though, because I offered to give one of their friends a ride home. Though her path ran close to my own path, this divergence from my 20-year routine caused me to consider following a different route home. I had forgotten how much I love the vistas of my homeland until I set aside my haste to return to my routine and instead chose to live in that moment. I determined to follow the backroads home -- not just the major highways that have served as swift conveyance for the generations of automobiles these past 100 years. No, I decided to follow the county roads, the old roads, the paths that hug along the various creeks and branches, that climb up and creep along the top of the ridges of the hills and then plummet into the valleys. It was a heaven-sent decision.

In my opinion, Middle Tennessee is blessed with some of the most beautiful geography on this earth. I often comment that the earliest settlers from Europe felt right at home as this land looks so much like the rolling hills of Scotland and Ireland. Yesterday, I hugged the Pigeon Roost Creek and indulged in the cool relief there from the extreme heat that rolled along the valleys. I climbed from these hollows to the ridges where the viewsheds caught my breath and forced me to pull off the road and admire. Miles and miles of rolling hills embracing verdant valleys, tinged with the haze of summer heat. The colors of those valleys ran from the deep green of those covered in acres of growing corn to the burnished gold of hay fields ready for cutting and back to the green of fields dotted with newly-rolled hay bales. If only the great French Impressionists had seen Middle Tennessee, they would have forgone France. I passed farm after farm where the horses ran across the green meadows, where the cows grazed along the cool creek banks, where the pigs slumbered in the shaded mudflats. The decision to take the slow road was one of my best decisions in ages.

Bishop Kallistos Ware spends a meaty chapter in his work The Orthodox Way encouraging his readers to look to the beauty of nature to catch a glimpse of its Creator. Yesterday, I caught more than a glimpse -- I was overwhelmed by the works of the hand of the Creator, who reminded me to slow down, breathe, and enjoy the beauty of the world that lies just off the routine path.

*Airmont Hay Bales Morning Painting by Timothy Chambers

Managing the Waste in Monticello

The city aldermen of Franklin recently sucked the Monticello neighborhood into their clutches. This older neighborhood, being out in the country when it was developed in the 1960s, was self-sufficient with regard to its garbage and waste removal. Now that Monticello is part of the City, the residents face hefty fees to eliminate (pun intended) their aging septic systems and tap into the city's sewer system. Obviously, this change will be costly. As a farm dweller whose land is always being lusted over by the city planners, I found the following "green technology" article especially pertinent for our situation as well as that of the Monticello residents. Until we can follow the lead of San Jose and transform our "organic waste" into bio-energy, perhaps we can keep the topic of manure off the hands of the city fathers.

BIOROCK Uses Rocks to Treat Sewage

By Tina Casey

Good-bye honey truck, hello rocks. A mini sewage treatment plant called BIOROCK beats conventional septic systems on every level. Using rocks as a medium, BIOROCK needs little or no electricity, requires less maintenance, and produces a super-clean effluent. It’s scalable down to use for individual homes. Farms, campgrounds, trailer parks, corporate parks, subdivisions and vacation spots are other likely uses. BIOROCK was developed in the Netherlands and has been kicking around Europe for a number of years. Recently it made the jump to Ireland and Canada, so it could be only a matter of time before it pops up in the U.S.

More Efficient Sewage Treatment on a Small Scale

BIOROCK consists of a modular block, installed underground like a septic tank. In the first treatment chamber, solids are trapped and digested anaerobically. The company claims that this chamber requires emptying only every 3-4 years. The second chamber treats the effluent through an aerobic process. It contains layers of fibrous rock in netting, which are exposed to air through a natural updraft, or chimney effect. Aerobic bacteria grow inside the rock matrix, aided by the updraft, and digest the suspended solids. BIOROCK U.K. reports that the effluent beats European standards for small sewage treatment plants, EN 12566-3 2005 and EN 12566-7 2006.

Sustainable Sewage Treatment

BIROCK’s ease of maintenance, simple installation, and use of recyclable materials helps contribute to a low carbon footprint. The BIOROCK process itself requires no electricity, and it is designed to discharge effluent by gravity into a waterway.

Sewage Treatment Off the Grid

Sewage treatment is one of the stickiest dilemmas that off-grid building designers face, especially in urban areas. The BIROCK system offers one solution for sites where a gravity discharge is not possible and pumping is required. Small scale solar panel and wind turbine components are available to help keep the system off-grid. The system could also prove useful for off-grid second homes or eco-vacation spots, even when they are not used year-round. It can be left dormant for long periods of time without damage, and it can be restarted within a day or so compared several weeks for a conventional septic system start-up.

Note: BIOROCK is not to be confused with the Biorock method of restoring coral reefs.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

By Tina Casey

Good-bye honey truck, hello rocks. A mini sewage treatment plant called BIOROCK beats conventional septic systems on every level. Using rocks as a medium, BIOROCK needs little or no electricity, requires less maintenance, and produces a super-clean effluent. It’s scalable down to use for individual homes. Farms, campgrounds, trailer parks, corporate parks, subdivisions and vacation spots are other likely uses. BIOROCK was developed in the Netherlands and has been kicking around Europe for a number of years. Recently it made the jump to Ireland and Canada, so it could be only a matter of time before it pops up in the U.S.

More Efficient Sewage Treatment on a Small Scale

BIOROCK consists of a modular block, installed underground like a septic tank. In the first treatment chamber, solids are trapped and digested anaerobically. The company claims that this chamber requires emptying only every 3-4 years. The second chamber treats the effluent through an aerobic process. It contains layers of fibrous rock in netting, which are exposed to air through a natural updraft, or chimney effect. Aerobic bacteria grow inside the rock matrix, aided by the updraft, and digest the suspended solids. BIOROCK U.K. reports that the effluent beats European standards for small sewage treatment plants, EN 12566-3 2005 and EN 12566-7 2006.

Sustainable Sewage Treatment

BIROCK’s ease of maintenance, simple installation, and use of recyclable materials helps contribute to a low carbon footprint. The BIOROCK process itself requires no electricity, and it is designed to discharge effluent by gravity into a waterway.

Sewage Treatment Off the Grid

Sewage treatment is one of the stickiest dilemmas that off-grid building designers face, especially in urban areas. The BIROCK system offers one solution for sites where a gravity discharge is not possible and pumping is required. Small scale solar panel and wind turbine components are available to help keep the system off-grid. The system could also prove useful for off-grid second homes or eco-vacation spots, even when they are not used year-round. It can be left dormant for long periods of time without damage, and it can be restarted within a day or so compared several weeks for a conventional septic system start-up.

Note: BIOROCK is not to be confused with the Biorock method of restoring coral reefs.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

New Options for Energy Independence in California

Every day we read and hear in the various media the hue and cry for Americans to become energy independent. Though our nation has vast resources available of coal and oil, our leaders seem determined to pursue alternative sources of fuel. With all the hot air that comes from Washington and state capitals, I cannot understand why wind energy hasn't overtaken oil as the most accessible resource. However, as the owner of a farm windmill, I deeply dislike the toll the turbines take on our flying friends.

Now, though, I read from my friends in California that one of their most forward-thinking city councils has contracted with a local company to produce enough gas energy to bring this town to the brink of energy independence. Yes, Gentle Readers, the city of San Jose, California is putting their S**t to work for them. In a Reuters article posted on June 17, reporter Ruedigar Matthes explains that Zanker Road Biogas Corporation will build and manage a bio-energy plant near the San Jose Water Treatment facility. The new bio-energy facility will harvest the "organic" food waste as well as the solid human waste from the city's water and transform this waste into energy. According to Matthes' report:

The Zanker Road Biogas facility would be the first facility in the U.S. with the technology to turn organic waste into bio-gas, keeping San Jose at the forefront of clean technology innovations. The technology that would find its home at the San Jose facility would use a process known as dry anaerobic fermentation to generate renewable bio-gas and high-quality compost.

I suppose this technology is perfect for our most populous state, which generates loads of manure. Now, if only San Jose can just make sure that all its inhabitants flush their contributions into the sewers. Perhaps that cause will generate a new facet to the environmentally friendly classes taught at its schools: Recycling, Global Warming, Flushing.

Only in California.

In Sickness and In Health, Til Death Do Us Part

 

My Tuesday book group is drawing into the final chapters of Meletios Webber's Bread & Water, Wine & Oil. It's been a thought-provoking study these past several months, and, given the topic of these last chapters, it won't go out with a whimper. This week's topic is one that polarizes most of humanity. We even have a rhetorical device to cover its discussion, Euphemism. This week's topic is Sickness and Death.

As a woman who is dealing with a chronic illness, I found much truth in Webber's comments.  I offer below a few of his comments:

Sickness is one of the ways in which we are strongly encouraged to come into focus and to look at a variety of serious and important subjects: the significance of life, what it means to be alone, what it means to be dependent on other people, fear and desire, hope and anxiety, loneliness, isolation, and, ultimately, death. ...

Sickness and distress do get our attention. Sickness, in particular, accentuates the fact that we do not control our own lives. ...

We have to learn to sit back and be taken care of, rather than attempting to be in control. (162)

Healing leads to a new life; death also leads to a new life.

God is like a parent sitting through the night at the bedside of a sick child, caring and waiting, watching for possible signs of improvement.... (163)

There is a strong awareness ... the sick person is in the hands of God, and that God will provide healing. ... [anointing] is a solmn commitment by the sick person ... to place himself or herself completely and without reservation into the hands of God. (164)

I ... have to be aware that one day, by God's grace, I will be anointed and I will not recover from whatever physical condition is causing me trouble. That anointing, too, will be for "healing of soul and body," not an effort doomed to failure. (167)

To push death away is to push away life itself. (164)

As with other philosophical foundations of life, one's perspective of sickness and death reveals much about that person. I myself am in this stream of God's eternity, enjoying this moment, this viewshed, but always ready to be carried around the bend to see what He has in store for me there. And I know it will be ineffable.

*Painting by Edvard Munch, Sick Child, 1907.