There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.Leonard Cohen

Inner Life Directions

Expanding Reality

August 2022

  • Hairdressers and Domestic Violence

    I noticed an article about a law requiring hairdressers in Tennessee  to undergo training to recognize signs of domestic abuse as of January 2022. Subsequently, I discovered that Tennessee ranks  5th as the state where women are killed by men.  So  utilizing any available resource  wouldn’t be surprising,  still, I was curious why Tennessee  and no other states?  That’s how I discovered that many other states have similar programs. New York, Illinois, Massachusetts…  and to my great surprise  that list included Texas or at least certain counties in Texas, with a program that  began in 2015 in Brazos County, where about half of violent felonies  were from domestic abuse situations. Yet  in none of these states is the training extensive but that’s not the point, hairdressers—and barbers—are not therapists–. The point is that hairdressers and barbers are in a unique position. Domestic abuse sufferers will generally not report their predicament to law enforcement but they will share it under the right conditions. And all of us know the freedom one experiences, how open and unfettered we can be while our hair is being cut and fussed with. Hairdressers can notice bruises and cuts, but also they can observe or be taught to observe certain behavior such as self- blame, sudden lifestyle changes, irregular appointments. One hair dresser noticed a bald spot in her client and it turned out that her  husband was pulling her hair out.  As a rule the task of the hairdressers and barbers is not to report it to law enforcement  but to share appropriate resources. That can be something as simple as giving them a phone number or two. In Tennessee it took a while for the law to be passed. The legislature did not want to appropriate funds for the training. Finally a sponsor came through.

    Training hairdressers and barbers is such a common-sense approach to a delicate problem. I don ’t know it if is in all states, but I would surmise in time it will be.

  • Peecycling

    When I read about peecycling in the NYT something in me went the way it must with many, yuck, but I quickly remembered how growing up in Morocco, a while back of course, a place which at the time had its fair share of horse drawn carriages, how often I would see people shovel in hand scour the streets where they had trodden collecting  horse manure. They would later mix it with a bit of straw and  sell as fertilizer. So why not collect urine? It is now the work of the Rich Earth Institute in Vermont  a non- profit which describes itself as engaging in research,  education and technological innovation to advance the use of human waste as a resource. It turns out that human urine contains the very nutrients that make the best fertilizers, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Chemical fertilizers use a lot of fossil fuels, and the war in Ukraine not only is reinforcing the need to move away from fossil fuels, it is also highlighting a shortage of fertilizer. Human solid waste is already being used, but human urine is even more beneficial because it has more nutrients.

    The Rich Earth Institute  gives jugs and funnels to those interested in collecting their urine. For some there can be a cistern installed and there is a way for the institute to come and collect it. The whole idea is not yet worked out so that it can be more generally used., but they are working on it.

    The Institute  as it turns out is not the only place in the world which works to use human urine. In Southern Niger, where chemical fertilizer can be too expensive for many farmers, it was discovered that the place where people relieved themselves had greater yields. They began to collect urine, and pasteurize it for a couple of month before using it– as is on wet ground or mixed with water on dry soil. They have noticed that when they used urine as fertilizer the yield is 30% more.  And in Paris some new apartments will be equipped with toilets which can automatically collect the urine. The more I read about it, the more the whole idea makes sense and given that we must find alternatives to fossil fuels and to fertilizers, the idea overcomes its own yuck factor and becomes attractive.

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