Households, cities, countries, and nations have enjoyed great happiness, when a single individual has taken heed of the Good and Beautiful…Such individuals not only liberate themselves; they fill those they meet with a free mind.
—Philo
I love Reddit.
Ask yourself what you are worried about if same-sex marriage is legalized. Whatever your answer is, ask yourself if you really believe what you just came up with. Homosexuality is not going to spread. It is not communicable. Society is not going to turn into a Lady Gaga video. Most gay couples I know are just as boring as you and I. They sit on the couch and watch television. They work at the post office, the hospital, the grocery store, and at real estate agencies, just like heterosexuals do. They eat out at restaurants and shop at Target. Many have pot bellies and don’t have much fashion sense, just like me. They own pets, and go to church. They volunteer, sing Christmas carols, and buy Girl Scout cookies. What are you afraid of? What is going to change by allowing these people to commit to one another and enjoy the benefits that you and I enjoy: tax breaks, insurance breaks, bereavement leave, medical leave to care for a sick partner, domestic violence protection, visitation of partner in the hospital, burial determination, medical decisions on behalf of partner. Really sexy stuff. You and I take these things for granted. Nobody wants to go through life not knowing how they will deal with some of these difficult moments in life. Imagine if you were denied any of the above rights when the time came for you and your spouse to exercise that right? I’ll tell you what it would feel like. It would feel like you were a second-class citizen.
“What is Cob?”
Cob is a traditional building technique using clay, sand, straw and water- wet enough to shape, yet dry enough to build up without forms. The clay acts as the glue, while the sand gives strength to the mixture and the straw gives the walls tensile strength once hardened into place. It dries to a hardness similar to lean concrete and is used like adobe to create self supporting, load bearing walls. A cob house is essentially monolithic. This with it’s curved walls gives them greater strength in earthquakes. Earth is an abundant resource that can produce beautiful and sustainable homes with a minimal footprint.
Most of the materials used for building an earth house are unprocessed, natural and local products such as sand, clay, straw and recycled materials.
Cob invites creativity to be expressed in the process of building your space. Because cob is very flexible to work with, you are able to create just about any shape, curves, arches, shelves, benches, niches, fireplaces and ovens.
Earth homes are cool in summer, warm in winter. Cob’s resistance to rain and cold makes it ideally suited to cold, rainy climates like the Pacific Northwest, and to desert conditions.
History of Cob
COB is not a new material. It is a building material that has been around for centuries. The word cob comes from an Old English root meaning a rounded mass or lump. It was started in England around the 13th century from other types of earth building techniques like adobe, sod, rammed earth, straw-clay, and wattle-and-daub just to name a few. Thousands of cob houses have weathered rainy England for hundreds of years.. Earth is probably still the world’s most common building material. With recent rises in the price of lumber and increasing interest in natural and environmentally safe building practices, cob is enjoying a renaissance. In this age of environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources, and chemical toxins hidden in our homes, doesn’t it make sense to return to nature’s most abundant, cheap and healthy building material?
What are the advantages of building with cob?
- Cob is gentle on the planet. Earth is non-toxic and completely recyclable, creates no waste, and requires minimal tools to construct.
- “Buildability” – Cob homes are owner built. It is easy to learn, cob is a very flexible and forgiving medium.There is obviously, quite a bit of labor involved but if time is not a factor, a house of this type could be built with just a couple of workers. Basic carpentry, plumbing and electric skills are required.
- It is Affordable and Inexpensive – The walls of the home are made entirely of natural resources that are available under your feet.
- Fire proof
- Cob is very durable and requires little upkeep
- Energy Efficiency – A cob house provides a large amount of thermal mass. This helps keep the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It is ideal for passive solar homes.
- Fun – If you like playing in the mud, this is the house for you. Seriously, this is an excellent style of house to build for those with imagination. You can be very creative with the walls of your house. Also a Safe building material with kids.
Color me obsessed.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Bob Dylan - Positively 4th Street
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you
Crying at my desk bye.
So heart-wrenching. Every time I hear or see blatant homophobia it’s always shocking. I can’t believe that it’s 2012 and we still haven’t overcome this tremendous injustice. Still, progress is being made and every day it’s more and more prevalent.
Some day we’ll get there.
(via popquizkid2006)
