| Lawn to Farm: Suburbia’s Silver Lining
I look at the empty countryside around our farm and can't help but wish it were as thick with people as when my grandparents made a living here. Until recently, though, the kindest name the rest of the world had for this wish was "nostalgia." Back then, leaving the farm made sense. The economy was growing on an energy-dense broth of cheap fossil fuels. The energy in those fuels replaced that from the muscles of farm people and their animals. Today one person can grow food for more than a hundred. A century ago, almost 40 percent of the United States population worked on farms. But with industrialization, millions of farm folk, their labor cheapened, headed to the city for better wages. That tide continued until fewer than 2 million farmers — less than 1 percent of the country's population — remain today.
Grace of Giving: Friends of Hospice eases final days for uninsured
James Holland had a terrible decision to make. The 63-year-old could receive radiation treatment for cancer that had spread from his lungs to his brain, and perhaps live another four months. "But it wouldn't be a good four months," said his sister, Jacqualyn Watson. Or he could go home to die in perhaps two months, but without the strain of further treatment. Holland, a retired heating and air conditioning technician, chose to receive hospice, or end-of-life care, at home. But he had no insurance to pay for it. Yet the day he returned home, a nurse showed up. She talked with him and gauged his needs, entering it all into a laptop computer. The next day, Sept. 19, a hospital bed and wheelchair arrived. .
China wants US satellite downing data
Unlike Beijing, which gave no notice before using a missile to pulverize a disabled weather satellite in January 2007, Washington discussed its plans at length and insisted it was not a test. Subsequent requests by U.S. officials for more information were ignored and none of Beijing's recent statements mentioned China's own satellite shootdown. China's anti-satellite test was also criticized for being more dangerous. The targeted satellite was located about 500 miles above the earth and the resulting debris threatened communication satellites and other orbiting space vehicles. Foreign space experts and governments labeled China a space litterbug. Still, the distinction between the two actions may be lost for many, said Denny Roy, an expert on the Chinese military at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
8 students treated for pain-pill use
What about the rest of society, can't they find the same inner piece in thier search? Why one people are allowed, another denied? Complex is an understatement. Glad these kids survived, but look at mankind in the broader picture. I'll lisen to suggestions, see more draconian laws, maybe we do the China solution, but you will have yet to find the answer in mankinds affinity for eutopia. .
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