the Bethlehem Regurgitator

The Bethlehem Regurgitator is always in need of writers. If you are interested in writing (volunteering only, unfortunately) please e-mail Peter at: oldcdogs@yahoo.com. Thank you for your interest.

NOTICE: I'm back! We will have more exciting updates shortly. In the mean time, if you were curious about my travels, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page to read a brief summary of what I've been up to.

The Bethlehem Regurgitator is a small not-for-profit weekly paper dedicated to informing the citizens of the Lehigh Valley about local environmental, peace-related, and social justice issues. There are articles and announcements published almost weekly on Sunday, or Monday. Print copies are made monthly, with reviews of all the articles from the month. These can be found at the Bethlehem Area Public Library, LEPOCO, and certain local businesses. I hope you enjoy the paper.
Sincerely,
Peter Christine, and Sam Wechsler, editors of the Bethlehem Regurgitator

Please note that due to the limited (nonexistent) budget of the Bethlehem Regurgitator, fact checking is impossible. As editor, I put a great deal of trust into my writers. If you detect an error of any kind, please do not hesitate to inform me so I can correct it. Thank you.

This summer I attended the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Agricultural Sciences. I don’t think I can honestly say (as some of my peers did) that this was the most amazing, wonderful, life-changing thing I’ve ever done, but it was none-the-less a very valuable experience, and I’m glad I went. The governor’s school was a very long and extremely complex experience. Although I figured I’d focus on academics our classes were multitudinous, and ranged from subjects such as Animal Genetics, to Natural resources conservation, to agronomy. I don’t think I could do justice to all of the classes, therefore I will endeavor to provide an overview of my impressions from the program as a whole, and give some highlights.

Most of the classes did not apply to my peculiar interests directly, but the information presented was useful regardless. The focus of many of the classes was conventional, generally industrial agriculture. I think these classes helped make my understanding of the agricultural system more balanced. In many of the classes I could appreciate some advantages of conventional systems that I had not previously thought of, but could also think more intelligently about the problems that remained.

Thankfully, in the last two weeks I had agroecology as an elective. This class dealt with examining the interactions between components of a farm, as well as the farm and the surrounding environment, for the purpose of maximizing production and minimizing inputs such as chemical fertilizers and labor. Agroecology could be loosely defined as the scientific study behind permaculture, which I had been studying throughout the school year. Unfortunately, one of my biggest disappointments as far as the classes were concerned was how brief they were. We had so many subject areas crammed into 5 weeks that most of the classes were largely introductory. It is rather ironic that while agroecology was my favorite course, I probably learned the least from it in terms of actual subject matter, since I had already thought about it a great deal, and we didn’t go into much depth with the subject.

The PGSAS did not leave me with any profound direction in terms of college plans, but at least I know a little more about what the agricultural science subjects are about. More than anything, the experience reinforced my inclination to not study agricultural sciences in college as a major at all. While I am still interested in sustainable agriculture, I think I could learn more about it outside of a traditional agricultural college program.

I hope this summary has satisfied any curiosity you might have had about my experience at PGSAS.