sastyk
Posts by this author
There are a lot of inherent contradictions in my life - and for the most part, I stand with Emerson and his claim that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Periodically someone throws at my claims that we're going to have to radically reduce our fossil fuel usage "but you are…
There are coyotes denned right across the road, which is one of the reasons we have Mac the Marshmallow. Mac is a 110lb Great Pyrenees dog, a livestock guardian breed the approximate size of a shetland pony. Asher, my four year old, has been known to ride him.
We call him "Mac the Marshmallow"…
...and I don't really have time today. Seriously, you've got to read the whinings of this idiot, and MTMB's response.
Maybe because my family of six pulls in less than 50K a year (as opposed to the 450K the gent in question is whinging about), and because I can identify still with the realities of…
_The Pump Handle_ often addresses the same issues that I do, from a public health perspective and is one of my favorite reads. As the UN Convenes to evaluate progress on the Millenium Development Goals - designed to reduce poverty worldwide, Liz Borkowski has done an admirable job of describing…
Well, we've finally got a mostly-complete ASPO Conference schedule. The problem is exactly the sort of problem you'd really like to have when running one of these - that there are just too many serious thinkers who need a spot. It is really tough to finalize the conference schedule when every day…
I'm really excited about the ways that ASPO-USA is evolving. ASPO's role has been to raise awareness about Peak Oil, and it is serving to expose the issue in new ways. I joined the board of an organization that I'd once criticized publically for being elitist and dominated by old white guys…
In some ways, we may be fortunate that the house we chose falls in a middle place in time - old enough to have character and beauty and a kind of solidity, new enough that we don't feel compelled to restore it to a past moment in time. Nor do I worry too much about the scratches the kids put in the…
During a three month period, between September 9 and December 16th, we have Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchas Torah, Asher's birthday, Simon's birthday, Thanksgiving, Isaiah's birthday and eight nights of Chanukah. It was manifestly poor planning on my part to produce three kids between…
Science Blogs is celebrating the beginning of the new school year with a series of 101-style posts, introducing the basics of a concept. I've got a couple of basics posts I'd like to do, but this one seemed particularly apt to me. I'm a homeschooler, but it isn't only homeschoolers that struggle…
Ok, that's not quite the headline at the New York Times, but close enough. Yes, the latest Oxfam figures that came out today say that we're back under 1 billion starving people. But yes, those figures were compiled before the Pakistani Floods, and before the 5% rise in food prices driven by the…
If you've ever done a long car trip with four kids - 10+ hours up and back, with multiple stops along the way, you know just how I feel.
The trip was wonderful - I got to talk about food and agriculture right in front of Thomas Jefferson's own vegetable garden, got to let my kids see enormously…
Super-quickie from me today - officially I'm in transit, but while my visiting my MIL and miraculously having time to read the entire New York Times before breakfast (admittedly the skinny Wednesday edition, but hey, I'll take it), I wanted to draw your attention to this article by David Leonhardt…
I've got to leave you with something fun to read. I'll be in Virginia for several days - if you are anywhere near Monticello's Heritage Harvest Festival this Saturday you should come by - it is going to be fabulous.. I'm going to be talking about how Jefferson's idea of "A Nation of Farmers" can…
There's an interesting article in the National Post emergent from a recent study in _Brain and Behavioral Sciences_
The article, titled "The weirdest people in the world?", appears in the current issue of the journal Brain and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Henrich and co-authors Steven Heine and Ara…
Let us start with persona, since one goes to any prizefight to see the metaphorical battle of two created characters, embodying sides, virtues, faults.
In this Corna... John Michael Greer, owner (by a whisker over Bob Waldrop) of the finest beard in Peak Oildom, Archdruid, moral descendent of…
It isn't that I'm not athletic, I am - but my strengths in the athletic zone were never speed and agility - more forceful forward motion and tough elbows in basketball games. I've never been the kind of person who makes that rolling catch to save the game.
Until now. You see, I've got a new sport…
Der Spiegel reports that it has obtained a German military think tank's analysis of peak oil's implicatons - and that the implications of the report are that the German government sees a peak oil scenario as potentially serious and likely enough to require attention:
The issue is so politically…
Yesterday I was on the phone with my Rabbi, who was asking me for data bout the BP oil spill and wanted to know whether there was any connection to peak oil. I told him that there certainly is - the BP oil spill is in many measures a consequence of a society under deep pressure to develop every…
It is manifestly the case that I have never fully mastered keeping things from getting overwhelming, but I get better at it every year (mostly). And there is a lot you can do to make sure that the canning and preserving don't make you crazy!
Despite the fact that you've got a life, a job, a family…
First, there's the end of summer canning and preserving - the warm dry weather has meant the most astonishing harvest, all of which needs attention yesterday. Second, there's the beginning of fall getting everything ready before winter on a farm, most of which involves carrying heavy things (hay…
About a year ago I was sitting around with a couple friends and they asked me where I thought my career was going. They were genuinely curious - what does blogging actually lead to? What kind of career advancement might a blogger get eventually? Can you transfer from blogging to journalism? Get…
I give a lot of credit to people who try and make peak oil and climate movies - trying to overcome the natural impulse of most people to say "Let's not go see that movie about how we're all doomed, instead, let's go see The Expendables" is one of those tilting at windmill things I admire. The…
"...and that's true love and homegrown tomatoes." - Guy Clark
Guy Clark's song is true - and over here we've got homegrown tomatoes and true love coming out our ears. The true love can be put up for winter until it is chilly and huddling together for warmth looks good, but the tomatoes, well, they…
Jessie finally kidded early Monday morning, giving us a solid ten baby goats, five does and five bucks. And on Thursday while celebrating one of my best friends' birthdays, we set them almost all out on parade (we ran out of kids to hold them before we ran out of kids to be held):
(From left to…
Phil-the-Housemate asked me recently for advice on getting his dissertation done. He's ABD, and having a tough time getting down to it. Asking me seems odd to me - I eventually baled about 1/2 way through my doctoral dissertation, due to a combination of childbearing, agriculture, slackdom and…
It is tempting to despair of all action. And sometimes those who despair are right. But sometimes they aren't. And this, I think is an important and central point for everyone who hits those moments when they simply don't believe society will self-correct in any measure from its impending…
The realities of climate change and energy depletion mean that at some point, we will encounter situations where there is not enough of an energy resource or one of the things it enables - whether food or transport or whatever, to go around. In fact, eventually we will enounter many of these…
A number of people, including Ilargi and Stoneleigh at _The Automatic Earth_ have long pointed out that the interventions that the government has made in the housing market hasn't served the people. They observe, for example, that by propping up house prices artificially they've benefitted more…
On ye olde blogge, in 2008, I ran a post-apocalyptic novel reading club for about six months. Why, you ask? Well, why not? When you deal with real doom, mocking (or praising on the rare occasions when it is good) fictive doom is theraputic - and fun. All of us, I suspect, have a secret stash of…
The IEA is the bestest agency in the world at admitting peak oil without actually admitting peak oil. They've now achieved a record - three years in a row of precisely matching the language and predictions of the peak oil community without actually saying the words. Matthew Wild points out the…