Media Constructions Of Sustainability: Food, Water & Agriculture

1. Media Constructions Of Sustainability: Food, Water & Agriculture PowerPoint Slide Show, Lesson 2 Creative Visions of the Future

2. L2 SONG #1 “Sustainability”DeLawn Hardy & Hasani Ashbury, 2007 Transportation is a big problem in the population Pollution from the cars got everybody tastin’ Gas, smoke, quit cutting down trees I’m savin’ my environment by sustainability I’m saving energy by cruising in a hybrid No more smoke, got to save the environment I’m fly kid, I’m high up in the sky Got to barely touch the ground, Got to keep my footprints light, no lie If you know what I mean I’m gonna step on the scene With my team Green Screen White tee, blue jeans, and I’m ready to go Pollution’s not a solution and it’s out of control I’m tryin’ to show the whole world I can do good for my turf Cause some of these living situations Are bad for the Earth So you sit back and relax And I hope you’re feelin’ me Cause I’m savin’ energy ­ that’s sustainability. CHORUS Cruisin’ in my hybrid, savin’ my environment Don’t let my pride get in the way, I listen to the scientists Check the shirt, we’re the Green Screen Environmental steps are light When we step on the scene. (2X) As your boys work the team I set the Green Screen. We stayin’ on our job. We keep the air clean. And we keep trash off the pavement and we’re practicing energy savin’ I ain’t Superman but I save women and children I’m doin my part and pickin’ up around buildin’s Get yourself a hybrid instead of the car With the extra vroom using extra fumes Or at least hit the light when you leave out the room I’m fly enough to have wings, your boy walk steady Check my footsteps, I don’t walk heavy But we can only do so much You ain’t helping out with your 4 by 4 trucks, Using mo’ bucks, recycling less stuff But watch what happens When your breathin’ gets tough And that global heat gonna start to get rough CHORUS

3. L2 SONG #2 “Country Living”Mighty Diamonds, 2007 I’m going back to country living Where the air is fresh and clean Going back to natural living Where the grass grows tall and green And the skies can be seen I’ll say goodbye to Kingston city City life is not for me Going where the stars shines brightly And the sound of nature’s voice Goes in the scene ‘Cause there’s room enough for both of us Time enough to tell All the things you wanna do Country life Oh with you, yeah with you. (goin’ back) yeah, yeah

4. L2 SONG #3 “Unsustainable”Eliza Gilkyson, 2008 Unsustainable, unmaintainable We’ve gone too far and now it’s uncontainable Let’s tear it down and start all over again Reprehensible, indefensible The way we are is truly incomprehensible Back to the drawing board Start all over again Madly, we loved you madly We would have gladly maintained the status quo Badly, we’ve behaved badly And now, sadly, we’ll have to let you go You’re so unforgivable, results unriddable To make a perfect garden so unlivable Back to the drawing board Start all over again

5. L2 SONG #4 “Throw Away That Shad Net (How Are We Gonna Save Tomorrow?)”Pete Seeger, 2008 PCB was a clever thing, 'way back in twenty-nine. Transformers and capacitors Got turned out on the line. Nobody suspected What they'd do to us in time, But now we got to worry 'bout tomorrow. Well, the purpose of technology Is gonna take a different turn, We'll test each new thing carefully, That's one thing we have learned, We need a clean world for all to share, And all to work and earn, Then, maybe, we can save tomorrow. Well, the experts knew about it, So why not you and me, Who controls the information in this land of the free? The laws didn't seem to help in stopping PCB, So how are we gonna save tomorrow? The longest journey taken needs a first step to begin. This cleanup's gonna take a while, But now we must begin. Clearwater says to lend a hand, a claw, a paw, a fin, ‘cause now we got to work to save tomorrow.

6. L2 POEM #1 “The Seven of Pentacles”Marge Piercy, 1971 Under a sky the color of pea soup She is looking at her work growing away there Actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans As things grow in the real world, slowly enough. If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water, If you provide birds that eat insects A home and winter food, If the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars, If the praying mantis comes And the ladybugs and the bees, Then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock. Connections are made slowly, Sometimes they grow underground. You cannot tell always by looking what is happening. More than half the tree is spread out In the soil under your feet. Penetrate quietly as the earthworm That blows no trumpet. Fight persistently as the creeper That brings down the tree. Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden. Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar. Weave real connections, create real nodes, Build real houses. Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving. Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in, A thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us Interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs. Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen: Reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in. This is how we are going to live for a long time: Not always, For every gardener knows that after the digging, After the planting, After the long season of tending and growth, The harvest comes.

7. L2 POEM #2 “For the Children”Gary Snyder, 1972 The rising hills, the slopes
of statistics
lie before us. The steep climb of everything, going up, up, as we all
go down. In the next century or the one beyond that, they say, are valleys, pastures, we can meet there in peace
if we make it. To climb these coming crests one word to you, to you and your children: Stay together
learn the flowers go light.

8. L2 POEM #3 “Remember”Joy Harjo, 1984 Remember the sky that you were born under, 
know each of the star's stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. I met her in a bar once in Iowa City. Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother's, and hers. Remember your father, his hands cradling your mother’s flesh, and maybe her heart too and maybe not. He is your life also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, yellow earth, white earth 
brown earth, black earth, we are earth. 
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, 
listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once. 
Remember that you are all people and that all people are you. Remember that you are this universe and that this universe is you. 
Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember that language comes from this. Remember the dance that language is, that life is. Remember to remember.

9. L2 POEM #4 “In a Country Once Forested”Wendell Berry, 2006 The young woodland remembers
 the old, a dreamer dreaming

 of an old holy book,
 an old set of instructions,

 and the soil under the grass
 is dreaming of a young forest,

 and under the pavement the soil 
is dreaming of grass. 

10. L2 NOVEL #1 “Mara and Dann”Doris Lessing, 1999 In a room in a building that had only machines of war was a wall that listed the ways it was thought these ancient peoples would have ended their civilizations even if the ice had not arrived. War was one. She could not understand the weapons: they were so difficult and so complicated. And even when the explanations were clear enough to understand she could not believe what she was reading. Projectiles that could carry diseases designed to kill all the people in a country or city? What were these ancient peoples, that they could do such things? “Bombs” that could…She did not understand the explanations. There was recklessness about the ways they used their soil and water. “These were peoples who had no interest in the results of their actions. They killed out the animals. They poisoned the fish in the sea. They cut down forests, so that country after country, once forested, became desert or arid. They spoiled everything they touched. There was probably something wrong with their brains. There are many historians who believe that these ancients richly deserved the punishment of the Ice.”  

11. L2 NOVEL #2 “Parable of the Sower”Octavia Butler, 1993 There are no guarantees anywhere," I agreed. "But if we're willing to work, our chances are good here. I've got some seed in my pack. We can buy more. What we have to do at this point is more like gardening than farming. Everything will have to be done by hand - composting, watering, weeding, picking worms or slugs or whatever off the crops and killing them one by one if that's what it takes. As for water, if our well still has water in it now, in October, I don't think we have to worry about it going dry on us. Not this year, anyway. And if people threaten us or our crop, we kill them. That's all. We kill them, or they kill us. If we work together, we can defend ourselves, and we can protect the kids. A community's first responsibility is to protect its children - the ones we have now and the ones we will have.”
 There was silence for a while, people digesting, perhaps measuring it against what they had to look forward to if they left this place and continued north. "We should decide," I said. "We have building and planting to do here. We have to buy more food, more seed and tools." It was time for directness: "Allie, will you stay?”
 She looked across the dead fire at me, stared hard at me as though she hoped to see something on my face that would give her an answer.
 "What seed do you have?" she asked.
 I drew a deep breath. "Most of it is summer stuff - corn, peppers, sunflowers, eggplant, melons, tomatoes, beans, squash. But I have some winter things; peas, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, winter squash, onions, asparagus, herbs, several kinds of greens… We can buy more, and we've got the stuff left in this garden plus what we can harvest from the local oak, pine, and citrus trees. I brought tree seeds too: more oak, citrus, peach, pear, nectarine, almond, walnut, a few others. They won’t do us any good for a few years, but they're a hell of an investment in the future.”

12. L2 NOVEL #3 “The Fifth Sacred Thing”Starhawk, 1993 “Tell us more about your home, Charlie,” Hijohn said. “Who owns the water?”
“What do you mean?” “I mean the water. Like to drink and grow your food. Who owns it?” “Nobody owns it. You can’t own water where I come from.” “Somebody’s got to own it,” Littlejohn said. “Somebody always does.” “We believe there are Four Sacred Things that can’t be owned,” Bird said. “Water is one of them. the others are earth and air and fire. They can’t be owned because they belong to everybody. Because everybody’s life depends on them.”
“But that would make them the best kind of thing to own,” Littlejohn said. ”Because if your life depends on it, you’ve got to have it. You’ll pay any price for it. You’ll steal or lie or kill to get it.”  “That’s why we don’t let anybody own them,” Bird said. “So if nobody owns the water, who decides who gets it and who doesn’t?” Hijohn asked. “Everyone decides together. Four times a year, each household sends a representative to the Neighborhood Councils to discuss water issues. Water Council coordinates distribution and arranges for the work that’s needed to maintain the system. Each house has its own cistern that fills with the winter rains. But that doesn’t give us enough for the whole summer. We draw from the streams and reservoirs and bring down water from the Sierras.” “What if you don’t agree?” “We’ll keep talking about it until we do agree. It works out.” “What if it doesn’t?” “It always does. It has to, because we know what the alternative is.” “What?” “The Stewards or something like them.” In the silence they could hear the call of the night birds. The sun was gone but the wind had dropped. “Well, where we come from you pay,” Hijohn said. “The Stewards control the water supplies; that’s how they took control of the government in ’28.”

13. L2 NOVEL #4 “Woman on the Edge of Time”Marge Piercy, 1976 “Mouth-of-Mattapoisett exports protein in flounder, herring, alewives, turtles, geese, ducks, our own blue cheese. We manufacture goose-down jackets, comforters and pillows. We’re the plant breeding center for this whole sector in squash, cucumbers, beans and corn. We build jizers, diving equipment, and the best nets this side of Orleans, on the cape. On top, we export beautiful poems, artwork, holies rituals, and a new style of cooking turtle soups and stews. “ “Why isn’t anybody in a hurry? Why are the kids always underfoot? How can you waste so much time talking?” Jackrabbit waved his arms windmill fashion. “How many hours does it take to grow food and make useful objects? Beyond that we care for our brooder, cook in our fooder, care for animals, do basic routines like cleaning, politic and meet. That leaves hours to talk, to study, to play, to love, to enjoy the river. “ “At spring planting, at harvest, when storms come, when some crisis strikes, Connie, we work, we stiff it till we drop…The old folks story about how they used to have to stiff it all the time. How long the struggle was to turn things over and change them. After, what a mess the whole ying-and-yan of it was from peak to sea.” Luciente waved off into the distance. “Now we don’t have to comp ourselves that hard in ordintime…Grasp, after we dumped the jobs telling people what to do, counting money and moving it about, making people do what they don’t want or bashing them for doing what they want, we have lots of people to work. We put a lot of work into feeding everybody without destroying the soil, keeping up its health and fertility. With most everybody at it part time, nobody breaks their back and grubs dawn to dusk like old-time farmers…Instance, in March I might work sixteen hours. In December, four…”  

14. Works Cited L2 Song #1 Hardy, D., & Ashbury, H. (2007). Sustainability. [Recorded by Young D ft. Hasani]. [Green Screen TV video]. Berkeley, CA: EarthTeam. [2009, October 4]. L2 Song #2 Bell, T. and Creed, L. (1971). Country Living [Recorded by Mighty Diamonds]. On Inna Da Yard [CD]. Soundicate. (2007). L2 Song #3 Gilkyson, E. (2008). Unsustainable. On Beautiful world [CD]. Red House Records. L2 Song #4 Seeger, P. (2008). Throw Away That Shad Net. On At 89 [CD]. Appleseed Recordings. L2 Poem #1 Piercy, M. (1982). The Seven of Pentacles. In Circles on the water: selected poems of Marge Piercy. New York: Knopf. L2 Poem #2 Snyder, G. (1974). For the Children. In Turtle Island. New York: New Directions. L2 Poem #3 Harjo, J. (1984). Remember. In R. Green (Ed.), That's what she said: contemporary poetry and fiction by Native American women. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. L2 Poem #4 Berry, W. (2005). In a Country Once Forested. In Given: new poems. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard.

15. Novel #1 Lessing, D. (1999). Mara and Dan. New York: Harper Collins. Novel #2 Butler, O. E. (1993). Parable of the sower. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows. Novel #3 Starhawk. (1993). The fifth sacred thing. New York: Bantam Books. Novel #4 Piercy, M. (1976). Woman on the edge of time. New York: Knopf