The PermaDesign Weblog, with Nate Downey and Melissa McDonald!
Nate’s Book, “Harvest the Rain,” Is Now Available as Iraq War Starts Wrapping Up!
The great news is that I finally got the shopping cart to work at www.harvesttherain.com, so you can now buy my book on our totally secure website! I’ll even sign it, inscribe it, date it, bless it, and send it off with a light misting of rainwater if you want me to. (HINT: For the latter, all you have to do is type “Please mist me.” in the little inscription box, and I’ll know the code.)
The better news of the day is that president Obama extracted the last of our “combat troops” from the needless war in Iraq last week. For this, we should all be grateful. As the father of two boys who will be approaching draft age in ten years, I have to say I’m pleased. Finally, at least one of the two wars that have been raging the whole time since my sons were born seems to be ending. “Oorah!
The sad news is that Obama gave a detail-free, platitude-heavy speech on the campus of Texas University in Austin on August 9. Billed as “Remarks by the President on Higher Education and the Economy,” evidently our president is a better commander in chief than educator at large. An opinion piece in Austin American-Statesman (http://bit.ly/cwBSGl) by Tom Palaima (MacArthur Fellow and ‘Harvest the Rain’ reviewer!) complains that Obama’s prescriptions for higher education are “on the order of a doctor telling a patient with cancer to take aspirin.
The sadder news is that if Obama had only gone to speak at Texas A & M where professors and students are getting deeply into all sorts of rainwater harvesting research (http://rainwaterharvesting.tamu.edu/), he might have been able to come up with specifics as to the huge number of jobs that we could create if we helped to jumpstart the rainwater harvesting industry in this country. These would be good, green jobs in the construction industry at a time when we need them most.
Got a direct line to the administration? Please pass this on….
08/25/2010 | Books | Children | Community | Water Harvesting | (0) Comments
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