Academics?

Permaculture is so cool! I've been reading about permaculture design for my Sustainable Agriculture class (what we lovingly refer to as "sustag") and it makes me want to live on a farm. Forget grad school. After all, once our economic base (fossil fuels) collapses, an IR degree won't do me much good anyway. As far as my sustag instructor is concerned, we are facing the apocalypse pretty soon, so I may as well gain some survival skills, right? Why not start with learning how to grow my own food? Actually, the great thing about permaculture, is that it is truly an art - taking advantage of the potential relationships between different elements on the land. Wouldn't it be nice if my biggest concern was how to make sure that the chickens get appropriate food while contributing to the fertilizing soil and reducing pests that may damage crops. There is obviously a lot more to it; permaculture design can be very complex, but it seems significantly more manageable than working towards a negotiated two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians.

More realistically though, I've talked to Elaine (my sustag instructor) about starting a garden when I return to the states. I've gotten all sorts of useful information from preparing the soil to good composting methods to tips on how to plant different vegetables and how to best store seeds. Corn, for example, needs lots of room to grow, so each seed should be planted at least one, if not two, hand-widths apart. To get good seeds, find a few good ears of corn, mark them, and let them dry out on the stock. When they start to whither remove the ear and the then scrape off the kernels. Let them dry completely (not in the sun) and store them in a Nescafe jar. Garlic can be planted from a clove that has sprouted, but make sure that it is pointing up or nothing will come up. Most plants can find the surface, but garlic grows in whatever direction you place it in. We've talked about cucumbers, onions, carrots, potatoes, and other herbs. They all seem to have their own little quirks to them. She also says that a kumquat tree grows quite nicely in a pot indoors...hmm, that could be fun.

While I'm at it, I can tell you a bit about my other classes as well. It's something I've tried to avoid blogging about because it seems so mundane, but I'll try to think of a few highlights. I really like aspects of my mediation class. It is supposed to be environmental mediation, but we have focused more on the mediation process itself, and last week we looked at three different conflict resolution cases - Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was really interesting to compare the three process, particularly because the US played such an important role in all three, but approached them very differently. As fascinated as I am by the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, I would really like to start looking at others in more depth. It is also funny that Ireland has come up here a couple of times. Not only have we looked at the conflict in Northern Ireland, but we talked about the potato blight and famine and sustag. I haven't had an opportunity to explore my Irish heritage at all, and the more I hear references to it, the more my interest is peaked.

We've also done some role playing in mediation. Active listening seems to be a really important skill to have. Thanks Avodah :) We have two instructors, one of which is a practicing mediator. He has worked on a number of environmental cases, I think. He has been the one to go through much of the process with us and he tells us great stories. The other is a professor at Ben Gurion University. She worked for the UN in Bosnia after the Dayton Accords were signed in an effort to implement them. She has also shared some fascinating stories about her experiences over there and how she managed to help bring the parties to the table over a disputed Sarajevo.

What else? We've finally gotten to policy issues in climate change. Alon Tal, founder of the Institute, gave us a few lectures. He is head of the new Green Party in Israel, so he's kind of a big shot. He currently does something in the Israeli government and he represents Israel in the UN for something related to the environment. Anyway, he's a legend around here, so it was good to finally meet him.

Good enough. I won't bore you with classes again. It's bad enough that I have to sit through them...

- M