I’ve written about this issue before. However today the Law Lords voted 3-2 that the Chagos Islanders lost the right to return to the archipelago. This was the final stage of a process which has taken over 10 years and in which they had actually won the right to return in 2000. The fury of the comments in Guardian article show that everyone thinks what’s happened today is disgusting and personally I feel ashamed to be British. It’s not surprising given what goes on behind the scenes of our government – I just wish more people were aware and bothered about political processes and did something about it (me included I must add).

“We” (the British government) forced them off their land to let the Americans have a military base, then argued that the land was unsuitable for people to live on, despite there being a military base. These people deserve to be left alone to do as they have done for hundreds, if not thousands of years; eck out a living with fish and other crops for food, live happily on the island and be left alone. Not good enough. The United States need a military base as a handy point in the Indian Ocean – probably just one of the places where rendition flights make their inhumane fuelling stops.

The Telegraph states the “immense importance (to America) of the base on Diego Garcia. No human settlements are found within about 1,000 miles of the installation in all directions, rendering it a uniquely secure location.

If you don’t know anything about the case, I suggest you watch this John Pilger documentary, Stealing a Nation.

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3667764379758632511[/googlevideo]

Anyway, it’s good to know that the US Military is having a nice time over there:

Media

Is it time to just sit back and relax yet? Take a rest and turn on the TV to catch the latest ball game. The Naval Media Center Detachment on Diego Garcia broadcasts three radio signals and three television channels 24 hours a day.

Radio

Power 99 FM is the station for Live DJ’s during the day playing the latest hits to your favorites of yesterday. Tune to 101.9 FM for a variety of music styles. If you are a talk radio or sports fan, switch it to 1485 AM for the best in stateside programming, live from the Broadcast Center California.

Television

Island 8 is your primary channel from the American Forces Network and brings you prime-time programming, live sports, news and entertainment. Don’t miss the nightly local newscast either to find out what’s going on around the island. News Sports 10 is focused more towards, you guessed it, news and sports, while Tropical 12 carries syndicated programming and movies all day long.

Print

Do you still need to know what is on which channel and at what time? Pick up the latest issue of the Tropical Times, Diego Garcia’s weekly newspaper. In it you will find the TV schedules, along with the movie listings, the galley menu, MWR events and a wealth of other information.

I think the next (and final) stage is the European Court of Human Rights. Who knows what will happen there…

If you haven’t heard of Michael Pollen, then get to know him. He’s a really influential voice in the US currently and argues vehemently against the way the food system works over the pond and increasingly around the globe. He manages to join the dots between government policy going back decades, the era of cheap oil and fertilisers, globalised food networks and the consumer.

His most famous book is the Omnivore’s Dilemma, a book which is sat on my shelf but I haven’t quite got around to reading it yet. Leanne has previously commented on his latest book, In Defense of Food. The theme across all these books is the same. He investigates the American food culture and traces meals from the land right to the table.

Last weekend, the New York Times magazine had a food special (If anyone from NYC is reading this can you please post me a copy…) and Pollen wrote a fabulous piece entitled Farmer In Chief. It’s actually a really succinct introduction to Pollen’s style and gives a good overview of his viewpoint. His key point is that localised food systems are better for the environment, consumers and the resilience of the country. He shows how the new system needs to work as currently we are eating fossil fuel (9 calories of oil per calorie of food eaten on average) and we’re also doing huge damage to the soils (with which all life on earth depends). His final point is that the new President should convert a part of the Whitehouse lawn to a “Victory Garden” (allotment) and the chef in the Whitehouse should cook local food meals, including one meat-free meal a week. Great ideas and something that could stimulate the “economy” in these difficult times – not so much in terms of GDP or growth, we can’t continue to measure our economy like that – but it terms of the collective health, wellbeing and dare I say it “happiness” of a nation…

So I’ll leave you with a really good video you should watch from TED (again). In Pollen says we should look at the human race from the perspective of the plants and animals and think about what we are doing to the planet!

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TQPN1O03z8I[/youtube]

As part of my thesis research, I emailed the 3 MP’s on the Wirral to gather some opinions on the work I am doing concerning local food production.

My (questionnably) MP is Stephen Hesford, Wirral West and this is who I probably voted for in the last general election. Frank Field is the MP for Birkenhead to the east and Ben Chapman is MP for Wirral South.

All very straightforward. Well it was until I got a reply yesterday from Stephen Hesford saying:

I’ve had quite a productive week of research including reading a great new book by Carolyn Steel called Hungry City. It charts the way cities have fed their populations and have grown to require more than the immediate hinterland to do this. It goes hand it hand with the Industrial Revolution, the invention of the Railways and shipping. In the introduction, Carolyn says it’s taken her many years to write this book. She’s trained as an architect and wanted to look at how food systems shape the cities. I’ve found it a really good introduction to understanding how the world has formed itself around our food systems. The worrying bit of all this is how linked we now are to huge globalised systems which may not be able to cope with shocks of oil price rises (and falls!)

I’ve also started reading Felicity Lawrence‘s new book Eat Your Heart Out, it’s an expose of the food business and looks at different food types in each chapter. I’ve sort of skim read the first chapter about cereals as agriculture crops aren’t really the focus of my thesis but the Vegetables and Meat chapter is shocking. She’s upto speed with the concepts of Peak Oil, Transition Towns and our need to provide resilience for our communities.

The power of the supermarkets and the seemingly weakness of farmers is all too apparent in today’s society. The BBC today is reporting that British milk production is at it’s lowest for 30 years, whilst we are importing more and more from European farms. We have some of the best land for grazing cows but still the system is unable to pay farmers a fair price. Something is wrong and if two dairy farmers are really going out of business each day, we are bound to hit a tipping point where we lose our capacity to provide for ourselves and prices will shoot up as supply drops.

I’ve also been reading through various papers extolling the virtues of Community Supported Agriculture, the need for Food Security, Edible Cities in the USA, Food Strategies, Farm Costs and Food Miles, Wirrals Allotment Strategy… the list goes on. I’ve realised there is far too much stuff out there to read and I’ve got to focus. One way of doing this is using mindmaps. I’ve been using piece of freeware mind-mapping software called unsurprisingly, FreeMind. It allows you to really easy build up mindmaps and is really easy to use. I’d recommend it unreservedly. The best bit is the keyboard shortcuts, you can pretty much do everything without using the mouse.

Finally I’d like to sing the praises of a fabulous magazine/newsletter called The Land. It comes out 2-3 times a year and has a huge range of articles about the countryside, farming, land and planning issues. Their mission statement is as follows:

The Land is written by and for people who believe that the roots of justice, freedom, social security and democracy lie not so much in access to money, or to the ballot box, as in access to land and its resources

It’s all very inspirational and motivating. I really like the non-mainstream way it’s produced and the quality of the illustrations and printing. It’s also got me into Woody Guthrie’s songs from the early part of the 20th century. When we were housesitting Tom Hodgkinson’s house in the Summer he had a double CD of Woody Guthrie songs that I kept listening to. I loved the simple stripped back lyrics and instruments.

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI5IRuS2aE[/youtube]

Leanne pointed out Charlie Brooker’s column in the Guardian today, it just about sums everything up – hilarious:

“And it had to happen, obviously. For years, money was just appearing from nowhere, or so we were told. People bought houses and bragged about how the value kept zooming up, and up, and up. In fact they didn’t seem to be houses at all, but magic coin-shitting machines. It was all a dream, a dream in which you bought a box and lived in it, and all the time it generated money like a cow generates farts. Great big stinking clouds of money. And none of it was real. And now it’s gone. Your house is worth less than your shoes, and your shoes are now, in turn, worth less than your mouth and your arse. Yes, your most valuable possessions are now your mouth and your arse, and you’re going to have to use both of them in all manner of previously unthinkable ways to make ends meet, to pay for that box, the box you live in, the one you mistook for an enchanted, unstoppable cash engine. I hope you’ve got a nice kitchen. Maybe that’ll take your mind off things. And sell that Alessi smoothie maker while you’re about it. You can’t afford fruit any more. It’s tap water at best from now on. It’s good for you! Really, it is.

All of it was a dream. All that crap we bought, all the bottled water and Blu-Ray players and designer shoes and iPod Shuffles and patio heaters; all the jobs we had; all the catchphrases we memorised and the stupid things we thought. Everything we did for the past 10 years – none of it really felt real, did it? Time to snap out of it. Time to grow our own vegetables and learn hand-to-hand combat with staves. And time, perhaps, to really start living.”