Emptybottle.org: Recent Comments

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 04:57:29 +0900

sucks

on a slightly positive note (that unfortunately might not apply here): the calamitous destruction of vast swathes of england's forest after that monster gale came thru in *ehh* the late 80s? was too big too costly for the government to feasibly replant. much mourning for the huge swathes of unreplanted ex-forest that would no more etc. and so it has been accidentally discovered that the UNreplanted forest regenerated an order of magnitude faster than the replanted stuff.
kew gardens's's new policy re damaged forest is to leave it the hell alone.

i love it when a plant comes together.

- Saltation

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:23:47 +0900

Eh. This too shall pass.

- Hieromonk Don Pardo

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:36:05 +0900

Very well spoken! I lived 40 miles west of Prince George at Clucultz Lake in a lakeshore cabin from 1971-1974, working as a high-school dropout, in a local sawmill and living "rough" with a wood-stove and no running water, and a classic outhouse...

I shudder to think of the coming firestorm when, inevitably, the standing red/dead-woods ignite one summer, from a bolt of lightening or from some cigar butt dropped by an ass**** American tourist from Florida, travelling in convoy in a string of 40 "Airstream" trailers being towed by a gas-guzzling S.U.V. or Hummer...

If large-scale logging was REALLY sustainable, there'd be no need to import wood to England.. "Sherwood Forest Products" would **still** be a thriving enterprise...

We're all in for some hard-times, and heavy choices!

- David A. Lewis

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:09:19 +0900

A few thoughts:

1. I think another reason for the closing down of the mills in the central interior of BC is the poor economy in the US.

2. The people who live there and have worked in the bush as loggers or truckers or in the mills or what have you shouldn't take the blame for the dead forests. No more than the rest of us, anyway, and not as much as the governments and corporations who refused to take a long term view of industry, choosing instead to make as much money as possible in the shortest time. Hopefully this will change the industry for the better here in BC.

3. All the dead wood standing in the forests, waiting to burn, will just add to the climate crisis. There should be smart people with power figuring our way out of this problem, whether it's free toothpicks for the world for life, or a new IKEA factory in Prince George, or a new generation of ultra-efficient wood-burning power plant.. well I'm out of ideas.

4. I've always identified BC as the great outdoors - trees, lakes, mountains, a garden of eden. My garden of eden. It's still awe-inspiring, it really is, but this devestation hits hard. There's a lot of hand-wringing and standing frozen in the path of the headlights right now, I hope we can get moving on some solutions sooner rather than later.

5.Thanks for the words about 'The Fort', Stav! I'm not the special little snowflake I thought I was, our experiences there were so similar. (-: Good writing, mate!

- bearman

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:41:14 +0900

Another visitor from The Blue. Thanks for the viewpoint.

My Dad is a professional forester. While attending U of Toronto (early '50s), he worked summers in Prince Rupert, and he's told me some wonderful stories from his summers logging in B.C.

I'm going to send him this link. He hasn't been active in the forest industry for near 30 years, and his involvement was mostly in Northern Ontario. Even so, I wonder whether he saw something like this coming.

Your description of your childhood in Northern B.C. was beautiful. I have many of the same feelings about Northwestern Ontario.

Best regards,

A.C.

- A. Codger

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:08:23 +0900

What's the best immediate solution / long term solution? Clear cut and "more smartly" replant? Burn the trees along with the little buggers? Introduce bug predator? What are they doing to fight the bugs? What's best solution if we look 100 years out, 200 years. In 200 years will it matter what "they" do today? Is there any upside?

- Kent

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:04:37 +0900

Eloquent and emotional as always, stav. Hard to hear about - even though I'd read some about it in the news, it's always tough when you hear the personal side of it. In another life, I was a tour guide in Alaska, and over the course of 4 years up there, I got to see a spruce beetle infestation, and how much havoc it wrought across south central Alaska. The dead forests on mountainsides stood out from miles away,leading everyone who saw them to say "what's wrong there"? I remember the difficulty of being able to explain the cause, but having absolutely no idea what there was to offer as a solution.

- alan taylor

Comment on "My Home Is Dying"

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:50:58 +0900

Absolutely devastating.

I am so, so sorry to hear that this has happened and that there is no easy or short-term solution. There almost never is with environmental issues.

Do the foresters recognize they were a party to this devastation?

- Gen Kanai

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:58:18 +0900

Good to show up here to find a new post, mate. I know it takes work and such, but write more, mmkay? You have a voice that needs to be heard.

- bearman

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:07:00 +0900

I've given up on feeds, I wander randomly and accept whatever I find. I saw your Tumblr post.

- andrew

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:08:29 +0900

Better to hit http://feeds.feedburner.com/emptybottle/ I think, Chip. Not sure the atom feed updates any more. Not sure what does how why where any more. Hell, it's been so long I'm surprised I remember my login to Movable Type.

- stavrosthewonderchicken

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:04:23 +0900

p.s. as syncronicity would have it, you can see cher singing whats it all about alfie on my blog this week. if that doesnt scare you back into quiet i don't know what will.

- jeneane

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:02:44 +0900

feed readers? that's sooo old school.

WELCOME BACK YA BASTARD! It got a little messy while you were away. Sorry bout that. Frank did it.

- jeneane

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:48:21 +0900

Nevermind, I played around until I hit a winner: http://emptybottle.org/atom.xml

- Sterling "Chip" Camden

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:44:43 +0900

Glad to see you're back -- but I'm having trouble finding a link to your feed. Got one?

- Sterling "Chip" Camden

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:55:33 +0900

Knew you'd come around sooner or later. Right now, get on with it!

- Charles Follymacher

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:51:18 +0900

Wow, I'm surprised people still have the site in their feedreaders! Thanks for stopping by!

Yeah, CCBC has it. Full lyrics:

I don’t know what the world may need,
But I’m sure as hell that it starts with me.
And that’s a wisdom,
I’ve laughed at.

I don’t know what the world may want,
But a good stiff drink it surely don’t.
So I think I’ll go and fix myself a tall one.

Cause what the world needs now
Is a new kind of tension.
Cause the old one just bores me to death.
Cause what the world needs now
Is another folk singer
Like I need a hole in my head.

I don’t know what the world may need,
But a V8 engine is a good start for me.
Think I’ll drive to find a place
To be surly.
I don’t know what the world may want,
But some words of wisdom could comfort us.
Think I’ll leave that up to someone wiser.

Cause what the world needs now
Are some true words of wisdom
Like la la la la la la la la la
Cause what the world needs now
Is another folk singer
Like I need a hole in my head.

I don’t know what the world may need,
And I never grasped your complexities.
I’d be happy just to get your attention.
And I don’t know what the world may want,
But your long, sweet body lying next
To mine could certainly raise my spirits.

Cause what the world needs now
Is a new Frank Sinatra
So I can get you in bed.
Cause what the world needs now
Is another folk singer
Like I need a hole in my head.

- stavrosthewonderchicken

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:26:09 +0900

Good to have you writing again.

(Folks, the last bit is a reference to a Cracker song: "what the world needs now is another folksinger/like I need a hole in my head... what the world needs now is a new Frank Sinatra/so I can get you in bed")

- CCBC

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:39:08 +0900

I'm mightily pleased to see this.

- andrew

Comment on "What's It All About, Alfie?"

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:15:23 +0900

>"Like I need a hole in my head."

you gotta breathe through something though, right?

- Saltation