Delmar, NY

Quick everybody fear aspartame 🍚

Aspartame is now as cancerous as drinking beer and wine. It’s big news, especially in natural health circles. Of course, alcohol is terribly unhealthy even in moderation – a lot of the people who defend drinking alcohol are a lot like those who defend eating dark chocolate and bacon. All good things, but be honest they are not healthy and should be considered an unhealthy treat only engaged in very sparingly.

Americans have long had this fear of science and technology. Some of it is justified – the history books are full of stories about advances like DDT, asbestos, leaded products whose uses seemed like a good idea at the time but ended up with tragic long term consequences. But those are mostly unknown risks.

People have been suspicious of artificial sweeteners since the 1960s. Cyclamate was banned in 1970 in the United States based on dubious science and lobbying by the sugar beets growing farmers in the Midwest which didn’t like the competition, despite the rest of the world viewing it as largely safe. Aspartame has been viewed with suspicion ever since. A lot of money and time has gone into studying the safety of aspartame and the results are mixed at best though it seems that in general the risks of aspartame consumption are relatively low.

A bigger concern with artificial sweeteners and food additives like MSG isn’t their health concerns but what they are masking underneath. Artificial sweeteners and food additives are often added to junk food loaded with calories, salt, sugar and fat – and have very little nutrient value or stomach filling protein and fiber which encourages overeating. There is this desire by Americans to blame the chemicals they are eating and not the underlying crappy food that the chemicals are masking.

If you mix aspartame at home with non fat unflavored Greek yogurt and frozen strawberries, what you are still eating is quite healthy. If you put MSG on kale and brown rice, you are eating good healthy food. But the same aspartame used in sugar free ice cream or MSG used on Dorritos is junk food. Chemistry can be good or bad depending on how it’s used – to enhance flavor or mask flavors of junk foods.

Traffic Counts in Greenville

By far the busiest section of road in Greenville is NY 32 past the elementary school 🚸. 7,100 cars pass that way each day. 

Hershberger Farm in Richland

Trout River, agricultural valley near Richland, a town that is mostly wooded and not particularly agricultural. 

An essay of mine about suburbia

With my job I travel quite a bit and get to see a lot of soulless upper-class suburban areas.🏑 The suburban areas are typically have supposedly nice chemically treated lawns, hardwood floors and enormous high ceilings made out of Chinese drywall and with the finest vinyl decorations you can find at local big box stores. They usually have the best selection of cookie cutter shrubbery and large open kitchen with marble countertops and massive color televisions and smart devices in every room. Everything is made out of cheap nasty industrial materials from China but is celebrated as being modern and stylish.🚽

Organic food fills the pantry and don’t worry, they even have an enormous recycling bin to compliment their even larger trash can. 🎠Advanced electronic controls keep the house a perfect 72 degrees even on the coldest winter day or the warmest summer evening. Because they want to make a green statement they may have grid connected solar panels on their roof, an plug in hybrid in their driveway and a plastic compost bin out bin back.πŸš— And a frilly dog inside. That’s the suburbanites life.

They work their high stress job in the big office tower downtown,🏒 drive their plug in hybrid back and forth to work every day through the grid lock of rush hour.πŸš™ They always send in their yearly check to the Sierra Club and get the latest magazines from the suburbanite house wife magazine. Despite living in tranquil suburbanites neighborhood they live in fear that a criminal, πŸ‘Ήsomebody of a dark skin color will break their picture window to steal their color television and rape their wife.

It’s a tacky, awful and expensive life if you ask me. It’s an incredibly consumptive life as they burn through millions of watts to keep the lights burning on the temperature perfect.:idea: They are left with big tax bills and utility utility costs every month. πŸ’°Their lives are completely isolated from the real world, insulated by remote industrial forces outside of their bubble.

I have nothing but disdain for the suburbanites way of living, especially how it emphasizes consumption and debt over all things in life. πŸ’³Rather than saving and investing, it encourages borrowing and television watching promoting even more extravagant suburbanite living.πŸ’΅

I do enough camping and spending time in the wilderness and I know how to pay my future first and save and invest in a variety of products to allow my money to grow avoid the trap of suburbia.πŸ’Έ I know that eventually I will be able have a more primitive and responsible life on my land if I plan and continue to invest both in the markets and myself through expanding my knowledge. πŸ“šI don’t have to have a plastic suburbanite life if I don’t want it. If you don’t have those expensive cable and utility bills, don’t own a television or have internet at home you can afford more. πŸ’»If you a primitive water supply, and outhouse and a simple instant on hot water supply for showers you can afford a lot more land and other toys that can bring you closer to the natural world then isolate you further in a plastic worldπŸ”Œ made up of Chinese drywall, marble countertops, big screen color televisions.

It’s actually remarkable how expensive the modern suburbanite life☎ is based on my estimates, although I guess I wouldn’t really know because despite living in the suburbs I choose not to participate in it. πŸ“²I like my small run down two floor apartments without air conditioning and only minimal heat in the winter. I like taking the bus to work every day and walking around town to the park and library. πŸ“—I like taking my own trash to the transfer station and doing whatever I can to conserve energy at home. And I do enjoy my many nights in the wilderness, camping alone out of eye shot and ear shot of anyone else. πŸ„πŸ‚But I do miss the small town living.

Regardless my weekend adventures in the wilderness keep happy as I work for a better tomorrow.

Phil Ochs – Ballad Of The Carpenter – YouTube

Over 50 years ago, Phil Ochs captured the life and story of Jesus so beautifully in the Ballad of the Carpenter ...

Jesus was a working man
And a hero you will hear
Born in the town of Bethlehem
At the turning of the year

When Jesus was a little lad
Streets rang with his name
For he argued with the older men
And put them all to shame
He put them all to shame

He became a wandering journeyman
And he traveled far and wide
And he noticed how wealth and poverty
Live always side by side

So he said "Come you working men
Farmers and weavers too
If you would only stand as one
This world belongs to you"

When the rich men heard what the carpenter had done
To the Roman troops they ran
Saying put this rebel Jesus down
He's a menace to God and man

The commander of the occupying troops
Just laughed and then he said
"There's a cross to spare on Calvaries hill
By the weekend he'll be dead"

Now Jesus walked among the poor
For the poor were his own kind
And they'd never let them get near enough
To take him from behind

So they hired one of the traders trade
And an informer was he
And he sold his brother to the butchers men
For a fistful of silver money

And Jesus sat in the prison cell
And they beat him and offered him bribes
To desert the cause of his fellow man
And work for the rich men's tribe,
To work for the rich men's tribe

And the sweat stood out on Jesus' brow
And the blood was in his eye
When they nailed his body to the Roman cross
And they laughed as they watched him die
They laughed as they watched him die

Two thousand years have passed and gone
Many a hero too
But the dream of this poor carpenter
Remains in the hands of you