#jason mark

Good essay by Jason Mark from Sierra Club, even though it is almost two years old. It’s extracted from his larger piece, Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man. What this published piece does is examine how environmentalists and others elevated “wilderness” and the concept of “wilderness” in the law and in our ethic to the level of a house of worship, which we visit but cannot ever disturb. From there, several environmentalists, increasingly over time, criticized the purity of the concept, almost to the extent of considering it a form of elitism, or that special place for those special people who care, ignoring the rest. Jason then compares the concept of wilderness to the gardening, using the urban garden as the better example of human interaction with nature that has more meaning and practical utility.

Now, Jason is backing off his elevation of the garden, and is questioning his own questioning of wilderness. It sounds all highly intellectual, and perhaps it i,. But, as our environment is facing crisis, increasingly so as the years go by, it’s worth exploring where we humans collectively and individually fit in “nature,” and the value of what we tend to, for our own needs, regardless of the “organicness” of it (i.e., the garden) versus the value of what we don’t tend to, and which we ought to leave alone (i.e, wilderness).

Excerpt:

Domestication is design for human convenience. When we tame other living beings, we shape them to fit our own needs. We pick and prioritize the plant varieties that have the highest yield, the most pleasing flavor, the best uniformity for cultivation and harvest. We cut off the testicles of just about every male mammal with which we live in close contact. (Do the gelding and the steer pass your golden rule test?) Every day the gardener makes life and death decisions about which species get to live and which do not, and in the process keeps humanity’s thumb pressed on the scales of evolution. There may be nothing wrong with such domestication. I honestly can’t imagine another way: To live, we must eat the world.

Thomasses got 10 million hits & 18-year old Brit girl played the Hollywood Bowl

Sarah and Nick – We Are Thomasse – 8.00am in Los Angeles

Time differences are a bitch.

I got an email from Nick Afka Thomas of Anglo-American comedy sketch duo We Are Thomasse.

“We will be at the Leicester Square Theatre on Wednesday Sept 27th at 9.30pm,” it said. “A lot has happened since your last blog on us! We now have 10 million views on our videos, have worked with Jason Mrazextensively,…

College of the Atlantic, Green Mountain College and Sterling College take top three spots on Sierra’s “Cool Schools” list

All three share environmental focus, small size, fossil fuel divestment, New England location   BAR HARBOR, Maine and POULTNEY, Vt. and CRAFTSBURY COMMON, Vt., Aug. 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — A new ranking of environmentally-focused colleges reveals that New England is home to the greenest colleges in the nation. College of the Atlantic, Green Mountain College, and Sterling College were awarded the…

SHOES MASTER x KICKS LAB x Jason Markk 10th Anniversary Sneaker Cleaning Kit

SHOES MASTER is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The Japanese footwear magazine has partnered with sneaker retailer KICKS LAB and premium shoe cleaner Jason Markk to create a special collaborative sneaker cleaning kit to mark the event. The cleaning kit includes a branded premium wooden brush and 4 oz Sneaker Solution spray. The items are packaged in a special wooden box with the number “10”…