From the Airforce: The Fight Against Windmills is On...

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."    Miguel de Cervantes

Apparently large windmills interfere with the radar capacities of the American airforce. Some say the airplanes simply disappear from the radar screens when flying over windfarms.  Aside from the interference of the rotating blades,  what might interfere with the radar systems are possibly the large specialty magnets inside the motors of the Turbines ( my thought -- experts tell me they are most likely not). 

The NYT reports that windfarms look a lot like storm activity on weather radar.  Thousands of existing turbines in the gusty Tehachapi Mountains, to the west of the R-2508 military complex in the Mojave Desert, have already limited its abilities to test airborne radar used for target detection in F/A-18s and other aircraft. It is the reason why the airforce has opposed the building of windfarms.

So a conflict of interests has been shaping up between energy security and national security. In many cases the Airforce has stopped or stalled windfarm projects. In the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon-Washington border and in the Great Lakes region. But the conflicts now appear to be most frequent in the Mojave, where the Air Force, Navy and Army control 20,000 square miles of airspace and associated land in California and Nevada that they use for bomb tests; low-altitude, high-speed air maneuvers; and radar testing and development.

california testing and training area

It may also play a role in the slow-down of  large wind projects in New Mexico which is now chosen to be a low flying military aircraft testing ground. This is what the airforce has in mind for New Mexico:

proposed LATN area: Low Altitude Tactical Navigation

To meet SOF mobility training requirements, the Air Force is proposing that various types of C-130 and CV-22 Osprey aircrews, flying as low as 200 feet above-ground-level (AGL) with speeds below 250 knots indicated airspeed, train in the proposed LATN area.  The proposed LATN area is necessary because the existing Military Training Routes (MTRs) controlled by 27 SOW at Cannon AFB are generally narrow corridors over flat terrain designed for use by F-16 aircraft previously flown from Cannon AFB.  These MTRs do not provide the access to aircrew training opportunities over high mountainous terrain need to represent current real world taskings.  .......  These aircrews would hone unique skills by flying:   

1.  At night 
2.  In high altitude mountains 
3.  With vertical terrain separated from large human populations.  
4. This SOF mobility capability is a unique, national asset and profi ciency at 
5. these skills are required for successful operations in ongoing global conflicts. 
6. The northern New Mexico and southern Colorado area proposed for the 
7. SOF training meets these terrain requirements.  This environment is very 
8. challenging for crews to keep the aircraft on the proper time schedule and 
9. course while avoiding simulated threats. 

There are also suggestions that testing of new generations of drones will be involved in this area. Though I am not independently able to verify these claims, it deserves a hard look by in-depth journalism. What is the full vision of DOE and DOD for New Mexico? Is it just nuclear weapons or does it involve so much more that the populous is not even remotely aware of ?


Let's get back to the question of energy security. After examining the AF requirements for the LATN area -- guess what ? Most likely no windmills in New Mexico.

Here I want to recognize that in the Airforce's rejection of windfarms is also an unspoken preference for nuclear power. The future of  Richardson's vision of New Mexico as the Saudi Arabia of the US with windmills and solar panels in the desert, generating energy that is distributed over the whole of the US, now looks instead like a Nuclear wasteland with nuclear waste, nuclear bomb facilities, enrichment,  nuclear power plants and low flying aircraft overhead..... This is sadly part of the continued story of New Mexico as a militarized colony: a true national sacrifice state, with a small marginalized population and little political power or 'voice'.

...Whether or not the AF is successful in halting the most reasonable solution for energy production in NM, wind turbines (and solar),  the added effect of interfering with airforce radar, should give pause to most other countries in the world.... Here is a thought: Re-allocate defence money towards the creation of large wind farms. 

It is a beautiful thing when people realize that energy security and national security in fact can go hand in hand. 


Go ahead, adjust your radar.....build windfarms as fast as you can.....!

The Failure of GM: Plenty of Pigweed.....Now What ?

It was only going to be a matter of time before Nature would catch up with the overabundant use of glysophate, or Round-up (made by Monsanto) as it is commercially known, in particular on GM corn, GM soybean and GM cotton fields. The New York Times is warning of the "Rise of the Superweeds" analogous to the rise of the Superbugs in Medicine. About 22 states and many millions of acres are apparently affected with uncontrollable growth in particular of 'Pigweed' which seems to thrive on Glysophate.....it just loves Round-up.( .... Irony of History.....the Revenge of the Natives......)

Monsanto must have anticipated the inevitable failure of the devious combo of Genetically Modified Seeds plus Round-up for a long time. It started experimenting with a 'souped-up' Roundup almost 10 years ago, to manage the problem of 'superweeds'. Indeed, according to Monsanto own press releases, company sales representatives are encouraging farmers to mix glyphosate and older (=leftover) herbicides such as 2,4-D, a herbicide which was banned in Sweden, Denmark and Norway over its links to cancer, reproductive harm and mental impairment. 2,4-D is also well-known for being a component of Agent Orange, a toxic herbicide which was used in chemical warfare in Vietnam in the 1960s. Imagine that......Agent Orange finally coming home......to fight the Superweeds..... A dark sequel to Vietnam. 



Now let's look at the vilified Pigweed for a minute. First the name, 'Pigweed', sounds as a easy target of demonizing. Who could possibly appreciate something so base as 'pig' and 'weed' combined ??

Before we go any further, I would like to re-enstate the true and dignified name of "Pigweed": it is "Amaranth". The word comes from the Greek amarantos (Αμάρανθος or Αμάραντος) the "one that does not wither," or the "never-fading". The 'never fading' aspect may not just refer to the flower (as the wikipedia suggests) --which indeed keeps its deep reddish or rust color for a long time-- but it may actually refer to the sheer tenacity of the plant itself. It grows in a large variety of soils (from acidic to alkaline) and climate (from hot to cold),  Amaranth comes back without being planted, and it grows in dry soils.... thrives even in fields treated with glysophate......never fading..... 


My own relationship with Amaranth began around 1983.  I wanted to make a special bread for my business, the Cloud Cliff bakery, at that time just a tiny venture in the Barrio of Santa Fe. I was looking for something.....indigenous, hardy and full of protein and rare nutrition (such as minerals and vitamins). Through the Rodale Institute, I stumbled upon the humble Amaranth, once considered a 'sacred plant' with taxes in the Aztec empire meted out in bushels of Amaranth. In fact, when rated by nutritionists for general nutritional quality, amaranth scores significantly higher than other common foods such as milk, soy, wheat and corn. Amaranth’s digestibility score is an impressive 90 percent, much higher than problematic foods such as soy, milk and wheat.

amaranth...ancient grain for our future....(magnification about 8X)

Amaranth seeds contain 5 percent to 9 percent high-quality oil, again, much higher than the common grains. Found in the amaranth oil are tocotrienols—a relatively rare and very beneficial form of vitamin E—and squalene, another rare compound reported to have anti-cancer  properties. I started finding ways to bake with Amaranth: The seed is small and hard and it requires some processing to be able to add it to food and be digestible. In my case I settled on germinating the seed to soften it before adding it to  bread. Experimental plots in New Mexico and Nebraska provided the Amaranth grain.

Cloud Cliff's "Aztec Amaranth bread" became my first commercial best seller, and people loved not only the taste, they enjoyed the health benefits as well. I have had many anecdotal comments on this over the years. So even now, after 26 years, I still bake with Amaranth, and I highly respect it and see it then and now  as "an Ancient Grain for our Future".

Calling Amaranth "Pigweed" or "Superweed"  really is an attempt by Monsanto and others who fall into the trap,  to make an ideological statement. In 1984 when the New York Times first discovered Amaranth, October 16, 1984, Jane Brody wrote about Amaranth like this:


Agricultural researchers are cautiously hailing this relic of antiquity as ''the grain of the future'' for its potential to provide protein, vitamins and minerals to people worldwide, including the United States.
Amaranth contains more protein than other common grain foods (the tiny seeds are 16 percent protein, as against 12 to 14 percent for wheat) and the quality of that protein - its ability to meet human protein needs - exceeds that of protein in soybeans and even milk. Unlike other grains, amaranth is rich in the essential amino acid lysine. When combined with corn, for example, which is deficient in lysine, a ''protein score'' of nearly 100 results.......


Now, 26 years later the NYT classifies that same Amaranth plant as "Pigweed" and labels it as the main invasive "Superweed". This is an example of how language is intended to manipulate perception. In other words: Classifying Amaranth as a Pigweed and a Superweed is an ideological statement in order to make the proposed solution (Agent Orange) seem rational.

perfect amaranth in soy field....now what ??

We need to look at this problem of invasive Pigweed very differently and luckily in this case we have a great opportunity to do so. Amaranth protein filled seed heads weigh up to 2 pounds and are relatively easily harvestable. In so many ways we already devote too much acreage to GM Corn, GM Soy and GM Cotton, and now Nature is offering us a gift in the form of Amaranth. Amaranth grows great where others can't. Challenge is not to destroy it, but rather find ways of processing it into flour, bread, candy, and high quality green roughage (ala spinach) and distributing it into a market that is protein and nutrition scarce and feed a populace.

Sadly it seems to me that before the advent of corporate agriculture, farmers used to be more self reliant and cunning. They have always seen opportunities where others didn't or couldn't care. History is filled with examples of this, but let me just quote one:


Rye came into the world suddenly in the form of a revolt of the lowly. In Pontos, on the shore of the Black Sea --a city surrounded by excellent wheatland-- grain ships were loaded to take seed to southern Russia. A few weeds that none regarded became mixed with the seed. But Behold! when time came for sowing, the soil proved too harsh for the wheat, and the weed flourished mightily. Rye had abruptly become a cultivated plant. The sowers intelligently exploited the accident, and within a few hundred years rye had spread to many soils that had been exhausted by continual crops of wheat.....(H. E. Jacob, 1944)


So I propose to adjust our combines and diets and start processing the mighty Amaranth into food. We potentially have millions of acres of it.....
Amaranth is a gift from God, and we better learn how to use it.

Mushroom Intermezzo

I took a walk once (not far from where these photos were taken, see vid below) with Lydia Popova, Russian scientist and an undersecretary of MinAtom, while Chernobyl was happening.
 Later she became a wisleblower on the Soviet Nuclear weapons industry. Because she died relatively young and her visit here relatively short, my time with her was way too brief for meeting a person with such a sharp intelligence and (Russian) depth,  clarity and kindness. She pointed out something that has stayed with me over these many years since that walk and her visit to Los Alamos and the United States.

Lydia Popova made the following statement in Los Alamos in 1999:

"I now always appeal to imagination, to inspiration and try to teach and appeal to simplicity and sincerity..... I believe that this is the best way to try to approach the experts who have very limited imagination, and also to activate people to try to understand that we are not just the Kings of the World....we are just one species among many other species.....we are all connected....and we are connected by the Beauty of this world......"

Most of us are living now in such stressful existence, that we forget to take time connecting with nature, and deny ourselves to experience the beauty of our whole of our interdependent web of relationships (as the Buddha would say)..... our deeper 'communion' with all sentient being. Yet this is what we need to do to remain focussed, and have our priorities straight. Anyhow, to illustrate the point,  take a walk with me.....enjoy!