We’re finishing up our vacation at the Beaton family lake house on Tennessee/Mississippi border. It’s been really relaxing most of the time, especially compared to the all-consuming house renovation.
I’ve still had to keep working on my web work which wouldn’t have been too bad but I have to drive several miles to get Wi-Fi and I can only work sitting in my car for as long as my battery will last. That’s meant a couple trips a day every work day. I turned on the broadband wireless card that’s built into my laptop but the lake house is in a black hole for cell phones…
I haven’t really written much about my new apartment. Essentially I live one block down from I old apartment, except now I live on the 7th floor instead of the 3rd and have an awesome view out of the windows in the living room. I live in a neighborhood called Mt. Vernon which also known as the cultural district. It’s basically in the north east corner of downtown Baltimore.
There are a bunch of cool museums, churches, monuments, statues and generally cool old buildings around the area. The Maryland Institute College of Art(MICA) is right down the road so there’s a bunch of cool wild art sculptures and displays around also, but especially on the boulevard that runs in front of my place
This last weekend was a good one, the one before it was really good too. I better keep doing what it is I’m doing. John came up to Richmond for a conference so I drove down to see him. I don’t think I’d seen him in well over a year. It was only supposed to take me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get there but it ended up taking about 5 with all the traffic. I left way early to beat it up, but not early enough apparently.
Richmond’s a nice town, it kind of reminded me of what Memphis would look like if it were really cleaned up. We went and ate at an Irish pub with his roommate who he had to drive back Saturday. They both gave presentations at the sociology conference they were at and now that it was over they were both happy to go out on the town…
Gore is passionate, convincing and inspiring. Now I understand what he’s going to do with his new ad campaign. I’m going carbon neutral. I want a footprint so light you can’t make it out in the sand. I want to be a part of the hero generation. Let’s save this planet people!
By the way, you should definitely check out more of the TED talks. They have amazing speakers that give really interesting presentations, performances, etc.
Well, I bought my ticket for this year’s Bonnaroo music festival for the exorbitant price of $277. It’s a lot, but it’s such a crazy unique time that I feel like it’s worth. Plus, I’m also at a place in my life where I actually have some disposable income.
The last Bonnaroo I went to was in 2001, might have been 2000. The whole thing is a blur, probably partly Bonnaroo’s fault. Back then the tickets were $140 and I thought that was insane too. In fact, I thought it was so ridiculous I hatched a scheme with several other people to sneak in…
As of today I am officially in the black. I paid off the last of my school loans and have exactly $0 credit card debt. It’s a nice feeling let me tell you. I imagine it will especially nice when my next pay check rolls in and I know that I get to keep it all.
I feel lucky to have been able to do get rid of everything so quickly. I know that I didn’t have an excessive amount of debt, but that’s because I’ve always been wary about accruing it in the first place. Part of it is just my personality. I don’t like owing anyone anything.
That same eagerness to pay people back sometimes comes back to annoy me though. I guess when I pay people back quickly it makes them think that I don’t mind doing them favors. So those same people begin asking me for more favors, not necessarily money mind you, but favors nonetheless. I don’t mind doing them at first, but a lot of times it becomes habit for them and I start to feel used.
Inevitably I resist and they say, “but I’d do it for you” to which I think, “yes, but I wouldn’t ask you to do that for me in the first place”. I hardly ever ask anyone for favors except maybe my parents (I love you guys) because I don’t like owing anyone and I just like doing things for myself. I guess I just don’t like people owing me anything either, especially since most people don’t feel the same way about indebtedness as I do.
I believe that this guy, Richard Heinberg, is absolutely 100% right on the money. I haven’t seen someone sum up everything I’ve read this well yet and I’m so glad I found it. This is why I’d like to start an organic permaculture farm and live a sustainable lifestyle. After I get myself taken care of I want to start working on a local level around the farm to teach others and help the community work on larger community projects that can’t be done by individuals.
Anyway, watch these videos. They’re important. You may not want to hear it, but it may be the most important thing you’ve ever watched.
Click to continue reading this entry and view the other 5 parts to this talk.
I haven’t written much in the last few weeks. I’ve been waiting to write something worthwhile. There is so much happening in politics, but I’m so tired of the litany of talking heads that I don’t feel the discourse needs any more noise. Dream tickets, hope, change, change, and more change. […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about the farm in Missouri lately. On my way home from work I remembered that collection of arrowheads he’d found out there.
Even though I haven’t been to the farm in awhile I started imagining them hunting in the woods there. I’m sure it looked similar to how it still looks, roll ridges and creeks in a deciduous forest, but who knows how long the arrowheads had been there? I’m sure an archaeologist could guess better than me, but anywhere from 200-15,000 when people made it to North America.
I can only imagine the hunt, but the amount of skill they must have had to actually kill something…[continued]
I was thinking about what I will tell future generations about what life was like during the time of oil. Whenever I think generally of oil my first thought is the opening credits to “The Beverly Hillbillies”. I found myself thinking of those nicknames, “black gold” and “Texas tea”.
While I was living in El Salvador I developed the tendency to think of the Spanish version of words and phrases. It was just mental practice of thinks I might want to say.
So when I translated “black gold” to “oro negro” I started actually thinking about the latin origins of “oro”. I’m sure that it is derived from the same word that we use for “ore”, which immediately brings to mind mining…
When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.
It’s easy to understand how uncomfortable the process of realization is if someone is to acknowledge that they have spent so much time and energy on an illusion. The urge to block those rays and suppress those truths is made all the easier with the diversions provided by the ones profiting off the willing labor supplied chasing the carrot at the end of the stick. Yet even those profiting are chasing unfulfillment…
“The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children”
- Bill Mollison.
I’d only had the slightest idea what permaculture was before this evening. I’ve always seen the term in conjunction with organic farming. It was usually the one with a funky drawing on the cover, which is probably because the idea was first introduce in the 1970’s.
I just assumed it was the spiritual version of organic farming and went with some more technical. I associated the culture with agriculture, instead of the general culture and not just a sustainable future, but one that grows.
No one wants to live on a dieing planet and I think most people see living without all of the comforts we’ve come to know and love as lowering ourselves to a place we can never hope to be happy again. The problem is that we think comfort is the same thing as happiness.
It also didn’t occur to me that the spirituality in this vision of permanent culture might resonate with me so strongly. It probably wouldn’t normally, but after listening to just this brief interview with Bill Mollison it really has me interested.
He seems like such a good smart honest guy that I really relate to. I want to know what he knows. Why the hell isn’t this kind of stuff they show kids in school? That was way better than any biology video, scratch that, any video I ever saw in school.
Tao is Tao Weilundemo, a freelance web developer and populist, a lover of disc golf, sailing, and politics in so far as it can be utilized to make the world a better more egalitarian place.
He's not from any one particular place, but you may know him from Columbia, MO, San Diego, CA, Santa Rosa, CA, Closeburn, Australia, Jackson, MS, Huntsville, AL, Austin, TX, Berlin, El Salvador, or Baltimore, MD. Did I mention he likes to travel?
Want to learn more about this Tao and his 3rd person talking self? Click here and he'll see what he can do.
I haven’t really written much about my new apartment. Essentially I live one block down from I old apartment, except now I live on the 7th floor instead of the 3rd and have an awesome view out of the windows in the living room. I live in a neighborhood called Mt. Vernon which also known as the cultural district. It’s basically in the north east corner of downtown Baltimore.
This last weekend was a good one, the one before it was really good too. I better keep doing what it is I’m doing. John came up to Richmond for a conference so I drove down to see him. I don’t think I’d seen him in well over a year. It was only supposed to take me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get there but it ended up taking about 5 with all the traffic. I left way early to beat it up, but not early enough apparently.
The last Bonnaroo I went to was in 2001, might have been 2000. The whole thing is a blur, probably partly Bonnaroo’s fault. Back then the tickets were $140 and I thought that was insane too. In fact, I thought it was so ridiculous I hatched a scheme with several other people to sneak in…
Even though I haven’t been to the farm in awhile I started imagining them hunting in the woods there. I’m sure it looked similar to how it still looks, roll ridges and creeks in a deciduous forest, but who knows how long the arrowheads had been there? I’m sure an archaeologist could guess better than me, but anywhere from 200-15,000 when people made it to North America.
I was thinking about what I will tell future generations about what life was like during the time of oil. Whenever I think generally of oil my first thought is the opening credits to “The Beverly Hillbillies”. I found myself thinking of those nicknames, “black gold” and “Texas tea”.
When I look around me I see a lot of people chasing things that will never make them happy. I imagine there are many more like me who can see that the dreams the powers that be teach us to chase are hollow. Whether it be only a piercing ray of truth slipping through the cracks or an undercurrent of suspicion always there but never coming into focus.
I’d only had the slightest idea what 