O'hare Boy Scouts

O'hare Boy Scouts
Originally uploaded by davidvw.

Recently on a trip to NoCal, I had to pass through O’hare. I just saw these kids and thought, “It must be hard to try and look cool in a boy scout uniform here.” Not that there is any wrong with being a boy scout…

Gerbera Giant Spinner

Gerbera Giant Spinner
Originally uploaded by davidvw.

I think I said something about new plants, so here is something I can certainly share. The blooms are about 12-15 cm across. I don't remember how many other colors there were. Don't expect to see many at your local garden center or box retailer as it is a tissue culture item. The input is $1.50 or more for the grower, compared to the normal .15 for a seed gerber. Not too many growers are going to take that risk. Those who visit our stores next spring should get a good look at them for a few days hopefully though.

African Aid

After spending a couple years living in Ethiopia teaching farming, I would have to agree with the summary given in this article (at least until they start talking about the musicians). Africa has been taught how to beg, and the once proud and self-sustaining tribes are now little more than drug addicts, waiting for the next injection of money.
While this is a cliched statement, "discipline, honesty and good hard work need to be ingrained before money is given," it is a statement that is bound up in a generational ethic that has been taught and needs to be broken.
This isn't the end all, but we need more realistic projects like this , in Debre Zeit, Ethiopia, that build up the basic knowledge of people and help them crawl, so they can walk and eventually run. Probably the best project that I have ever seen in any 3rd world country is Selam Technical School and orphanage in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. They take the orphans of the civil war and Aids and teach them either cooking, farming, or shop work, like welding and carpentry. It is extremely disciplined and everything has a certain efficiency about it, probably due to the excellent people who run it.
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man how to make the fishing nets and fish, and he'll feed the community.

I was just able to read a few paragraphs of this , but haven't had the time to think about it. I'll come back to it.