Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Books for a Candidate’s Post-election Bucket List by D.G. MARTIN One of my old friends, a successful politician, gave me great advice that I ought to pass on to the hard-working can- didates who face the electorate this week. Half of them will experience a disappointing loss. My friend had tough competition and faced the prospect of losing in every election. “But when and if I do lose,” he told me, “it is not going to be all that bad.” He explained. What he did during the campaign was to keep a secret list. It was something like a “bucket list.” He wrote down all the things he wanted to do, but wouldn’t be able to do if he won the election. He listed the places he had always wanted to see, old friends to visit, vacations to take with his family, courses he could take if he went back to school for a semester, new skills he wanted to learn, an exercise program, and lots of other things. “By the time I had about 10 things on the list, I wasn’t all that worried about losing anymore. In fact, when I compared what was on the list with what I would be doing if I won, I started hoping that I would lose. Well, maybe not really hoping to lose, but not dreading the alternative so much.” At the top of my friend’s bucket list were a whole bunch of books that he would be able to read if he lost his election. So, in honor of the candidates who might lose on Nov. 2, I am suggesting five books for them to consider putting on their post election list. I confess that I have a personal agenda here, and if you haven’t guessed already, you will know it before you get to the end of the column. Here are book suggestions for the candidates and for you to consider: Minrose Gwin’s The Queen Of Palmyra. This new book by a UNC-Chapel Hill professor is set in a small Mississippi town in 1963. The leading characters are a The Queen of Palmyra is just one of many great books by N.C. authors. young white girl and an African-American woman who is a family servant. The book has been compared to the best- selling The Help. But lots of people, including me, think that it is deeper, richer, and much better. (Gwin will be my guest on North Carolina Bookwatch on Friday, Nov. 5, at 9:30 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 7, at 5 p.m. Now you know my secret agenda.) Jim Hunt: A Biography by long time Hunt aide Gary Pearce. Pearce’s good storytelling skills make for a good read as he explains how and why Hunt became the most success- ful North Carolina politician of all time. It is a must reading for politics-loving Republicans and Democrats. I plan to write more about this book in a few weeks. (November 12, 14) Suzy Barile’s Undaunted Heart: The True Story of a Southern Belle and a Yankee General. Barile tells the story of the courtship and happy marriage of Union General Smith Atkins and Ella Swain, daughter of University of North Carolina President and former Governor David Swain. (November 19, 21) In The Shadow Of FDR: From Harry Truman to Barack Obama by North Carolina’s leading historian of the U.S. Presidency, William Leuchtenburg. Professor Leuchtenburg compares the challenges that Franklin Roosevelt faced with those of his successors. (November 26, 28) Conquering the Sky: The Secret Flights of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk by East Carolina University history professor Larry Tise. Tise tells the story of the flights by the Wrights at Kitty Hawk in 1908. It was these flights, not the first flights of 1903, that convinced the world that the Wrights had mastered the challenge of controlled powered flight. (December 3, 5) D.G. MARTIN, Columnist COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com Hydroponics and the Envrionment From the Editors of Environmental Magazine What are the environmental benefits of the hydroponic growing of lettuce and other crops? — Bruce Keeler, Oakland, CA While organic agriculture is all the rage, growing by leaps and bounds to meet increased consumer demand for healthier food, another option that’s less well known but just as healthy is hydroponics, whereby plants are grown in nutrient-fortified water-based solutions without a soil sub- strate whatsoever. Besides not needing chemical fertilizers or pesticides (most of which are toxic as well as derived from petroleum), hydroponics also take up much less space than traditional agriculture, meaning that even an apartment window can yield impressive amounts of food throughout the calendar year. In traditional forms of agriculture, soil facilitates the process of providing the mineral nutrients that plants need to grow. Organisms in the soil break down the nu- trients into inorganic basic forms that the plants can then take up accordingly and put to use photosynthesizing. Of course, some of the organisms the soil attracts are unwel- come, and not every speck of soil is ideal as a growth medium, so we have come up with ways to kill off unwanted pests (pesticides) and pump up the ground’s productivity (fertilizers). But growing fruits and vegetables hydroponically obviates the need for fertilizers and pesticides — let alone soil — altogether. “Without soil, there is little to no microbial activity, so the plants depend on direct nutrients from nu- trient solutions,” reports Alexandra Gross in E – The Environmental Magazine. “And because hydroponics occur in a highly controlled space and microbial ac- tivity is at minimum, pesticides, insecticides and herbicides are not needed.” In most hydroponic systems, the nutrient solutions include inorganic salt 18 UCW NOVEMBER 3-9, 2010 Hydroponic growing not only eliminates the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides but also takes up much less space than traditional agriculture, meaning that even an apartment window can yield impressive amounts of food throughout the calendar year. Image by Ars Electronica, The Window Project. fertilizers and semi-soluble organic materials such as bat guano (manure), bone meal and fish emulsion. Since growing hydroponically does not require chemical fertil- izers and pesticides, the method is inherently “organic,” although the federal government doesn’t recognize it as such officially. Hydroponic farmers are trying to get the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to take soil out of the equation when it comes to defining organic so that their products can bear an organic certification label on store shelves and appeal to a quickly growing segment of green- minded consumers. Hydroponic methods are becoming especially popular with a new wave of green-minded urban gardeners. When artist Britta Riley began growing her own food hydroponi- cally in the window of her fifth floor Brooklyn apartment in 2009—and sharing her findings with like-minded folks all over the world via the Internet—the Windowfarms Project was born. In less than two years, some 13,000 people have joined the online community at the windowfarms.org web- site, where members can download free how-to instruc- tions for homemade hydroponic systems. Along with the Windowfarms Project website, a couple of good sources of hydroponic growing information, inspiration and supplies include Hydroponics Online and Simply Hydroponics and Organics. CONTACTS: E – The Environmental Magazine, www.emagazine.com/ view/?5221; The Windowfarms Project, www.windowfarms.org; Hydroponics Online, www.hydroponicsonline.com; Simply Hydroponics and Organics, www.simplyhydro.com. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk®, c/o E – The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earth- talk@emagazine.com. E is a nonprofit publication. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM