Seed Keepers

[Pumpkin Lady <pumpkin@xanadoo.com>]

oowonbs@netscape.net wrote:
> Hey guys... Having read and reread this, whoa...
> There's not even smoke here...

I think there's a whole sub-something-or-another going on here. I know 
that I am finding comments that I thought were fairly innocuous get 
reacted to and that I, myself, am reacting to things on here in an 
angrier fashion than I normally do.  I wonder if we've got a not very 
far below the threshold "grumpy" going on with this whole list.

Toni bugged me with the "write me off list" thing and I called her on 
it...and I made her mad(and she made me mad with the posting to the list 
"you have private email").

Oh well, I stand by it. I found this list because others shared the 
address and instructions on how to join on other lists. If that hadn't 
happened, how many of you would be here?  I think I meant more that it's 
"not fair" not to return that courtesy about other places when asked. 
Maybe that's just as bad, I guess it's all in personal preference. I 
don't think offering information about other places should make people 
bail, unless they weren't getting what they needed here in the first place.

I really do think this list has a whole lot of potential, but I also 
think something is going on to keep hamstringing efforts to get us all 
pulling together. Maybe it is that it was started in anger. I don't know.

Let me address my anger some.

I am angry about GMOs. I am, but there is nothing I can "do" about it. 
There's nothing I can vote for to get anything done about them. It's a 
total non-issue as far as platforms go for government. The only thing I 
can "do" is I can(and will) grow more and more of my own food. I don't 
pick out things I know are likely to have GMOs in them when I buy food, 
with the exception of meat, which I don't grow for myself (yet).

I would like to see, rather than "GMOs are bad, we should yell about 
this", some discussion of how we can help our crops not be contaminated 
with GMO pollen and such. GMOs are not going to go away any time soon. 
Until there is something constructive we can do about getting rid of 
them, we should focus on how we are going to keep them from 
contaminating our good seed.

I feel bad that Kent was kicked out of the SSE. I don't know the whole 
story. I do feel bad for him, no matter what - but I don't know enough 
to have an opinion as to whether or not it was warranted. Since I don't, 
yelling about it doesn't do anything for me except increase my 
irritation level.

This whole seed vault thing...again, it's a non-issue for me. They are 
going to do what they are going to do. So what? Did them getting seeds 
keep you from getting seeds somehow? If it pisses you off enough and you 
have the money, make your own vault. I thought we were supposed to be 
here to swap seeds and share knowledge about how to grow stuff. Let them 
play in their sandbox. We'll make our own. That's the best thing to DO 
about something like that. If you are angry go dig some dirt or remodel 
a room or something.

Bio-diesel, is a Bad Idea in my book. You can feed a person for a year 
on what it costs to make just a little bio-diesel, taking stuff out of 
the ground and burning it in your car puts nothing back in the ground. I 
rarely hear on the gardening lists that we are losing topsoil at a scary 
rate, but the small(organic) farming lists seem to be aware of it. 
Bio-diesel will just increase that IMO. But that's just my opinion. 
Other people are allowed to have theirs.

GMOs were originally touted as going to make super healthy food without 
all the time required to breed up a new variety. They rarely use it for 
that. They did use it to save the papaya, but that now puts papaya on 
the GMO list...and I don't know enough about exactly what they did to 
know if I want to eat it or not. Despite my anti-GMO stance, I might 
soften on that particular one if I knew more. That's basically the 
problem. We don't know more...and what we do know seems to indicate it's 
all bad, but we never get all the evidence to weigh on way or another.

Ok, I guess I've really lost focus here. I'll shut up now.

Morgan