Saturday, November 22, 2008

Organic Kona Coffee Is Back, Talking Story on Hawaii


Back in 1998, when we were living on Maui, I was contacted by an organic Kona coffee farmer about helping him sell his gourmet coffee beans. He was one of my best clients until he sold his farm and retired in 2006. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard from Mike Tucker, one of the guys who bought Dr. Faust's farm.

Tucker has been refurbishing the farm, getting organic control of the weeds (cutting them), installing his own processing equipment, starting and planting his own coffee tree seedlings, getting the Hawaiian coffee farm certified organic, and much more. It's an amazing amount of work to farm anything organically, especially coffee.

Great thing about this story is that you can read the entire experience, because Mike kept a journal of the entire organic coffee farm refurbishing story, and it is now his blog. Judging from what is there already, this would be a good blog to subscribe to if you're into organic agriculture at all. All you organic coffee farmers will love it!

Or maybe you just love fresh roasted organic Kona coffee beans showing up ot your front door when there's a foot of snow outside. Like me.

Maybe you're a real coffee nut and you want to home roast your own organic green coffee beans from Hawaii... Mike says you can use an old popcorn air popper!

You don't have to Digg organic Kona coffee in order to Digg the story of organic Kona coffee farming. It's an enticing blog, like the aroma of fresh brewed... Ah, you get the idea! Plus, there are all kinds of great pictures of Hawaii, the big island of the Hawaiian Islands.

The organic Kona coffee from 1500 feet up the side of Mauna Loa near the Hawaiian sanctuary town of Honaunau is back! And it is better than ever!

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Interview with the Pakistani Spectator

I was contacted by the Pakistani Spectator for an interview, which was fun. I don't get a lot of interview requests, but when I do, it's always from very interesting corners of the world. This blog is especially interesting, coming from one of the "hottest" places on earth, in terms of instability and terrorism. Of course, Pakistanis are just like everyone else in the world: they're being taken advantage of by rich plutocrats too!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

My Suggestion for Obama's Energy Department

Ever since I was a teenager reading about alternative energy, my hero has been Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Reading the Freakonomics blog today, there was a little mention of how many readers are suggesting what I had only dared to dream: that we make Amory Lovins Secretary of Energy. Now, this is what I call an Energy Department.

Monday, November 03, 2008

The Electoral College Is Absurd

Anyone who's ever visited my Bush Quotes page knows I hate the Electoral College. I hadn't thought about it much, with Obama so far ahead in the polls, but this little doozy reminded me:

"This system, along with the winner-take-all practice used to allocate most states' electoral votes, creates the potential for an absurd outcome. In the unlikely event that all 213 million eligible voters cast ballots, either John McCain or Barack Obama could win enough states to capture the White House with only 47.8 million strategically located votes. The presidency could be won with just 22 percent of the electorate's support, only 16 percent of the entire population's."