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Tag Archive | "civilization"

Into the wild

Saturday, December 3, 2011

103 Comments

American essayist Norman Cousins wrote: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” Personally, I’ve never been content sitting still, surviving for survival’s sake. Evidence is found in the roller coaster of my academic career, which was marked by significant change every few years. [...]

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Falling in love again

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

79 Comments

When I was young, I fell in the love with the girl next door. Well, maybe it wasn’t love. But she was lovely and it felt like love, to my young heart. It wasn’t about sex, although she was sexy. Color me smitten. Fast-forward a few years, and I fall again. I’m older, perhaps more [...]

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Preparing in place (and speaking in other places)

Saturday, November 5, 2011

109 Comments

There are various ways to ready oneself for the trip down the peak-oil curve, as well as for climate chaos. Most importantly, as I’ve indicated many times, is psychological readiness. If you are mentally prepared for a future radically different from the past you’ve known, you’re well on your way to thriving in the years [...]

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Couchsurfing with my soapbox

Thursday, September 29, 2011

108 Comments

My recent foray to Wisconsin and Michigan had me staying five different homes, hence sleeping in five different beds and eating at many different tables. It was quite an exciting adventure, spent with wide-awake people, and I hope to repeat the experience as many times as the industrial economy allows. I’ve embedded one of the [...]

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Catching up

Friday, August 5, 2011

83 Comments

This brief post is used to point out three former activities and one future one. I present them as I live: in chronological order. My July essay at Transition Voice summarizes collapse-related information. I am featured in this article from 14 July by editor Erik Curren at Transition Voice. I am featured in this article [...]

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I don’t know shit

Saturday, July 30, 2011

160 Comments

I was in the garden last week, digging a new bed with the aid of the two WWOOFrs, Mike and Karen. We excavated to the usual depth — that is, until exhaustion stopped us — then installed a hardware-cloth “basket” before refilling the bed. When we amended the soil pile of rocks by adding horse [...]

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Partial understanding on planet Easter Island

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

117 Comments

The recent S&P downgrade of U.S. debt is yet another example of a circus sideshow in a nation filled with clowns sleepwalking off a cliff. Ben Bernanke, the master of ceremonies in the most ridiculous show on Earth, has come up with a new scheme to print money, hence plunge a financially bankrupt nation further [...]

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The race is on

Sunday, March 13, 2011

172 Comments

Everywhere I turn, I read and hear about $200 oil in the near future (here’s one recent example, from somebody who should know better, here’s another from hyperinflation guru Gonzalo Lira, and here’s another from historian Niall Ferguson. Investors are being sucked in, too, and at least one pundit fool has jumped the shark, calling [...]

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C-REALM radio interview

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

96 Comments

Late last week I was interviewed by KMO for the C-REALM radio show. The resulting podcast runs about an hour, and it’s posted here (go directly to podcast here). All comments welcome, all the time. My monthly essay for Transition Voice, barely modified from an earlier essay in this space, was posted here today.

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Demise of the dollar

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

109 Comments

The U.S. dollar continues its journey from Brobdingnagian to Lilliputian stature, and the latest trade report is a prelude to the dollar as microbe. The Prime Mover in this case is King Ben, who has the helicopter on track for a one-way trip to Zimbabwe with every American along for the ride. Death of the [...]

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