Questionnaire by Wendell Berry and Palm Oil in your Lunch

I took this photo of the haze in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan on Sep. 21, 2014. Breathing in this smoke is surprisingly easy -- the way buying products containing palm oil is ridiculously easy. This haze comes mainly from fires burning on oil palm plantations. When you think of this photo in terms of the future world we're making, that's when breathing in this smoke hurts.

Questionnaire

How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

For the sake of goodness,
how much evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

What sacrifices are your prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

State briefly the ideas, ideals or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

Wendell Berry

Advocates for Orangutans are at the forefront of the campaign against the spread of oil palm plantations in Indonesia. But it isn't just about Orangutans and forests. It's about humans too. It's about land-grabbing and loss of livelihood and increased dependence on external sources of income. The things that we might think are far away are already in our supermarkets, making their way into our arteries, banging down the doors of our farmers and taking over our soils. All eyes on Palawan now (click to see petition). Some claim that oil palm will pave the way to poverty reduction, but the farmers have different stories to tell. Which way forward from here? "Please name your preferred poisons."

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Cordillera Folktales and Story-telling

It was cold and wet outside on the day of the launching of The Golden Arrow of Mt. Makilkilang and other Cordillera Folktales . But inside Mt. Cloud Bookshop we were warmed by stories read and performed by the Aanak di Kabiligan community theater group. Storytelling on a stormy afternoon. Paco Paco. A Benguet story from the book, published by the Cordillera Green Network. Aanak di Kabiligan means children of the mountains. The theater group was born out of the Cordillera Green Network's eleven years of conducting workshops in which children transform their grandparents' stories into theater productions. Here they perform the title story of the Golden Arrow of Mt. Makilkilang and Other Cordillera Folktales.

Lola of Maipon

It's all too easy to fall asleep under the blanket of everyday life and to smother dreams with the mundane things I surround myself with. But once in a while, along comes a sparkling vision that jolts me out of my daily sleep and reminds me of the existence of convictions and worlds so different from my own. "Our beloved LOLA of Guinubatan, Maipon, Albay is the last true messenger of God. So, let us follow her holy teachings so that we will gain TRUE SALVATION without sufferings and without death." In another story I, the intrepid heroine, the adventurer seduced by mysteries, the pilgrim in search of truth, would follow them back to Guinubatan from Session Road, thirsting to see and hear their Lola for myself. However, it's all too easy -- much safer! -- to fall back asleep under the blanket of everyday life, and to smother dreams with the mundane things I surround myself with. Then along comes 9 a.m., and really, it's time to down the dregs of coffee at the bott

Ritual for all Occasions

Attended a talk delivered by Dr. Albert Bacdayan, UP Baguio. Feb. 20, 2013. "Ritual for All Occasions: The significance and persistence of the 'Senga' in Northern Sagada." The senga is a ritual in which at least one chicken and one pig -- sometimes more -- are sacrificed. The senga is usually performed for milestones such as the completion of a house, the opening of a new business, a wedding, a funeral, when someone is ill, when someone is leaving on a journey. He spoke of how Cordillerans have a ritual for almost every occasion or ailment. Indeed, the word he used was not ritual but "remedy."Dr. Bacdayan described this as a "healthy agnosticism."He mused that the abundance or such remedies and rituals is the reason there are rarely feelings of helplessness among Cordillerans. He described ritual as a bundle of activities that assures people and anchors identity. When one calls the old men and is the principal of a senga, you are perceived t

Now/here no/where woman

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