Bank of America, I hate you with all my heart and soul

RANT Goodbye Bank of America

Dear Bank of America,

I hate you with all my heart and soul. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but of all the relationships I've had with legal individuals, mine with you has been the worst yet. Wasted is my time, money, and tears on patchy customer service, inconsistent policies, and that bland red, blue, and grey company image. I've been with you since I was 16, and the day has come, seven years later, to say goodbye forever. Goodbye, forever :)

Coldly,

Stephanie Lin

PS. I'm now with Patelco Credit Union, treating me better with 5% on my new CD. Ha!

RECEIVER OF COMPLAINTS Federal Trade Commission

The Federal Trade Commission was originally set up to protect market competition. Current tag line: "protecting America's consumers." If you ever want to bitch about anything as a consumer, you can fill out the "complaint assistant" form online. Maybe someone will read it?

Collective Propaganda

PROPAGANDA Berkeley Student Food Collective

New posters. We'll be giving them out at various events this summer, along with hand-sewn logo canvas bags, buttons, and screen-printed organic shirts.

Summer & School

TODAY Is the First Day of Summer

Summer means: Longer days and shorter nights.

Summer also means: white nectarines, blackberries, all berries! cherries, peaches, plums+apricots = pluots+apriums, figs, cold watermelon on a hot day... kill me now.

SUMMER SCHOOL Berkeley City College

My intro to drawing class starts today at BCC!! It cost me $64 - what a deal (at least compared to the UC = $292 per unit, damn). Too bad community colleges like City College of San Francisco, which pretty much canceled their summer session, are being hit by the messy thing that is California's budget.

Guerilla Gardening

DEFINITION Guerilla Gardening

moss graffiti

Guerilla gardening: The act of gardening on someone else's land without permission, usually on neglected land. Methods range from organized community projects to covert planting operations featuring political art. Some features include seed bombs, moss graffiti, spontaneous flower beds, and secret marijuana gardens.

news stand flower bed

BOOK On Guerilla Gardening: A handbook for gardening without boundaries

Reynolds, after five months living in a 10-story tower block in London, missed gardening and began surreptitiously cultivating the planters in front of his building, gardening in the dead of night to avoid interference. Reynolds draws inspiration from pioneers of the movement and borrows techniques from more infamous guerrillas such as Che Guevera and Mao Tse Tung. Both a manifesto and a manual (tips include how to build seed bombs and deal with pests unique to the guerrilla form of gardening: authorities and landowners), the book delights with tales of exploits from the anarchic, artistic community of guerrilla gardeners. I want this for Christmas.

"TROOP" Los Angeles Guerrilla Gardening

Los Angeles Guerrilla Gardening (LAGG) started on a summer night in Hollywood, CA. We started as a group of friends looking for a fun activity and a way to brighten up a local neighborhood. Our mission as LAGG would soon become: To get our hands dirty by starting gardens all over Los Angeles. To be a resource for other potential Guerrilla Gardeners and a home base for people interested in brightening their own communities.

The Plan

APPRENTICESHIP UC Santa Cruz Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture

Step 1. Learn all aspects of farming.

The Apprenticeship provides training in the concepts and practices of organic gardening and small-scale farming. This full-time program is held at the Center's 25-acre Farm and 3-acre Alan Chadwick Garden on the UCSC campus. Run in conjunction with UCSC Extension, the Apprenticeship course carries 20 units of Extension credit for the approximately 300 hours of classroom instruction and 700 hours of in-field training and hands-on experience in the greenhouses, gardens, orchards, and fields.

COUNCIL Los Angeles Community Garden Council

Step 2. Establish or support an urban community garden/farm in a place that needs it.

Approximately 70 community gardens are growing in Los Angles County, serving 3,900 families. Community gardens are vibrant, cooperative organizations that build neighborhood self-reliance, and reduce poverty, mitigate global warming and benefit the LA River and Ballona Creek watersheds. If your community wants to build a community garden, the LA Community Garden Council will help you do it yourself.

MASTERS Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Step 3. Get a masters in landscape architecture with an environmental planning focus.

Environmental planning is the application of natural and social science to promote environmentally sound development and management of natural resources. It is a broad field, bridging the disciplines of geology, soils, hydrology, plant and ecology, law, and public policy.

There are only three accredited programs in CA (USC, UC Berkeley, and Cal Poly Pomona wildlife). I think I'd prefer Cal.

BUSINESS Environmental Consulting

Step 4. Eventually establish an environmental consulting firm (with some real cool people) that focuses on sustainable food systems + community farms in urban areas. Hopefully I'll still be in my twenties or thirties.

LA Community Gardens

LIST LA County Community Gardens and MAP

View Los Angeles Community Gardens in a larger map

GUIDE Community Garden Start-up Guide

1. Find land for the garden

2. Find out who owns the land

3. Find out if the proposed site has water

4. Contact the land owner

5. Get your soil tested

6. Sign a lease with waived liability

7. Obtain liability insurance

8. Plan the garden

9. Create a garden budget

10. Find materials and money

11. Install garden infrastructure

12. Clean up the site; weed

13. Install the irrigation system

14. Plant something

15. Celebrate!

(16. Expand and troubleshoot as the garden develops)

FILM The Garden

Synopsis: The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis. Uh oh.

A few people have recommended this to me, but I've been warned it's depressing.

If you're a citizen...

VOTE California Primaries Today

You can find your polling place here.

Coming soon...

HELLO I'm currently in the works of starting up a food coop/market in Berkeley. Wish me luck!

BLOG Food Collective

For now, here's our blog, with recipes and pictures of cute things dressed up/posed as food.

Raj & Annie

EVENT The Value of Stuff: Raj Patel in Conversation with Annie Leonard

Annie Leonard produced, "The Story of Stuff" and Raj Patel wrote, "The Value of Nothing." I assume they will converse on the topic of consumption and how it's bad sometimes, and maybe even give a lil' somethin' 'bout how things can be better. Presented by the Earth Island Institute.

Thursday, June 17th, 7PM

The David Brower Center

2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA

$10+ suggested donation

GUIDE The Good Guide

This guide tries to put together common product information, from food to kids' toys, into a digestible database that rates life cycle impacts on Health, Environment, and Society. They even have a Good Guide iPhone app that lets you look up product barcodes while you're at the store. This is a sure way to guilt yourself out of/justify buying stuff.