Solutions(?)

[pan]

A thread dedicated towards possible solutions rather than the rather pessimistic fare we engage in with much of our other communication.

[Cal]

We Are What We Eat ....


... I do permaculture gardening. I have just moved to a house with a flat expanse of kikuyu lawn that needs mowing once a week and an old leaking swimming pool. Transforming it into a permaculture / forest garden is going to be challenging. I've started with a lemon tree & a plum tree & so far the dogs have refrained from digging them up. I need to get the soil back into shape. Permaculture is about using whatever organic material comes to hand. So far all I have is 6 bags of grass clippings (some cadged from neighbours who left theirs out for the garbage man to take away), several tonnes of dog poo a day, a fly trap liter bag full of dead flies and about 100 cardboard boxes all my stuff was packed into when I moved. I'm doing an experiment 1m x 1m in size ... layering the different materials and slowly building up quite a pile of what I do hope will turn into really good compost. That's what I do when I get home from work every day. Rural life is good. When I lived in the city I used to go to gymn after work ... now I just go out & fork the compost hea -:)

[John Bessa]

Yup, deflation by creating a thrift ecomomy, and taxing spenders. The lower financial base would attract foreign buyers and industrial investors reversiong our present dilemma.

[pan]

Lipodiesel?

With overtones of Fight Club soap making procedures, plastic surgeon claims that he fuels his car from his patients' discarded fat.

[waldopaper]

Check out the Top Ten TreeHugger stories of 2008... ranked by click. I have been trying to follow the aptera car... what I think is the sleeper design of the decade (at least). I have been doodling a thing like this for at least 10 years... how to use the existing zillion-dollar road infrastructure. You could put millions to work building designs like this... to get others to their job rebuilding the railroad and energy infrastructure... shipping food from the redesigned food infrastructure ... but before all this happens, the political-social-economic paradigm has to change. This could possibly be done by initiating more discussion of a steady-state economy.

The reaction I have gotten to this is "it won't work because... uh... uh..." ...it's not like anything we have now. Neither is the aptera... which is why I imagine the tanking big 3 could have possibly imagined such a design. Likewise, the tanking political-social infrastructure is going to try to use the kapo-military infrastructure to keep itself alive. hah. it's already defunct. Much can be done by imagining something different... which will happen as the status-quo day jobs disappear.

2009 is going to be a wild ride indeed.

[BO]

Here's a solution I've been exploring lately. Full-Time RVing.

I've been reading stories (via their blogs) about quite a few families who decided to drop out and hit the road. Here's a web site dedicated to collecting their stories and sharing information...

Families on the Road

I can't see where trying to maintain a middle-class lifestyle in the US is a viable option anymore. It's a losing battle. Personally, we're one job away from experiencing financial disaster. And my wife's company is planning layoffs. Me?...still five years out from collecting social security, which, combined with a meager pension and dwindling investments, won't be enough to maintain half the lifestyle we have today. Welcome to old age in America. If you're lucky enough to have to saved anything during your working years, sure as shit, the government is going to get it all on your way out.

Time to stop rowing against the current, build a raft, relax and float down stream.

Speaking of floating downstream, all the streams and rivers in the great state of Washington are flooding this week. And the poor lowlanders are being flooded out of their homes--at least those who agree to leave. Poor schmucks...this happens just about every year now. Gotta wonder why Americans don't realize that if you build below sea level, there's a good chance your house may become a boat.

[BO]

OK. So, I leave to pick up my son from school after posting this plan, and what's the first thing I hear on the radio?...Eddy Vedder's, Hard Sun, from the movie Into The Wild. Is that an endorsement from God (the cosmos), or what?

BTW, we're about to pull our kid out of the Catholic school he's going to. Decided that they're overly punitive--which isn't surprising considering the nature of the beast. Not surprising, the kid refuses to conform. Problem is, he's too smart and his parents have taught him the fine art of critical thinking. He breaks rules. So, I've been arguing with his teachers the last few days about his performance and their punitive ways. They want control. I won't give it to them. Had to to tell one of the bitches off today because my son received detention for not showing how he solved a math problem--he did it in his head. My wife and I are planning on having a confrontation with the principle and vice-principle. Won't make a gnats difference in their fucked-up delusional lives, but hell, we'll feel better. Been feeling guilty about having him go there anyway. Probably close to doing the homeschool thing. All the schools around here are fucked up.

God, I hate christians. Is that an oxymoron?

[pan]

Medusa and I have talked about the RV solution for many years. Liking our house right now and this semester I'm gonna teach as many classes as a full-time prof does for 1/4 of the pay (god I love academia!). We had a financial planning session with TIAA CREF and found out, much to our surprise, that there is a 90% probability we will be able to retire at 62 at the same lifestyle we currently have (it helps that our only real extravagance is my homebrewing hobby and we have no kids) - would like to be able to live a little less frugally but it is somewhat reassuring.

Bo, your kid reminds me of me. I decided in 2nd grade that I would only do homework that wasn't busy work - got by on being smart and being able to pick things up in classroom discussions. I remember doing the same thing - solving math problems in my head and being annoyed at having to show my work - but, when one gets into higher level math showing the work is the work of proofs. Hopefully your kid will not have to flunk out of college like I did before being sufficiently interested in the educational process to do the assigned work.

[Mouse]

The creative energies of my 5 year old granddaughter were recently baffled by her teacher punishing her for writing her own words instead of copying.
I found out when we were messing about and she insisted on copying from a book instead of doing her own thing. She told me what had happened, and that she must always copy and not write her own words. You may imagine my response.

Several times lately she has has interrupted my rants with "I don't want to be a slave!" Good lass, she's learning. I grew up assured that slavery was not on the cards. Now it's become necessary to teach what freedom is, how it feels, never to let it go.

[Mouse]

[BO]

sad. But it certainly is a lack of critical thinking that turns kids into killers.

As the quality of education declines, predatory behavior accelerates. Fun times ahead.

[pan]

My oldest brother still brings up the time in grade school (parochial) that they were to draw a bird. He decided to draw a bird in flight so he blurred the bird traveling through space (hmmm, kinda like the futurists or Duchamp's descending nude!) He was very proud of the results and was crushed when the teacher (I think it was a nun) handed his drawing back with a big red F and said that it didn't look like a (static) bird.

[BO]

MONKEYS TALK ABOUT RELIGION