Is this "IT"?

"Post Collapse Food" apple pie, lentil, brown rice, summer squash dish, garden salad.... could be worse.

freeacre & ras

Ras has graciously put together a post for us regarding making food preparations for shortages that are affordable and do-able in a short amount of time. In fact, we may not have much time left to make preparations. Matt Savinar, in his comments today on LATOC, warns that this is, indeed, “IT”. Gather with your loved ones, turn away from your computer screen, go outside and enjoy the little time you have left. He thinks that the possibility of a huge methane explosion in the gulf may cascade into millions of lives being snuffed out by poisonous and flammable gasses that could blow at any minute. You probably have already traced the links that he provides. We have been talking amongst ourselves about this for weeks.

Additionally, there are the dire predictions of the sunspot cycle and the solar flares and coronal mass ejections that are speeding up. The cycle is anticipated to culminate in December of 2012, when the Earth and Hanab Ku (the Mayan term for the center of the galaxy and its transformative energy). At that point, an angry Sun could blow off the protective magnetosphere of the earth, and fry us. A shifting of the poles of the earth, the stop and then reversal of the rotation of the planet, and subsequent global tsunami, would destroy most living things. Or not. After all, pole shifts have happened regularly and things got rough. Ice Ages have happened. Weather changed dramatically. But, the human race survived. In fact, enough anomalous artifacts have been found that simply do not fit within our assorted histories that make it seem likely that destruction of Life As We Know It may have occurred repeatedly – maybe for millions of years.

Almost seeming tame in comparison is the possibility of the death of the dollar, the breakup of the European Union, war with Iran (less likely if oil shortages become acute soon), and hurricanes destroying property and spreading contamination that would lead to mass evacuations and the deaths of millions once again. Oh, yeah, then there is the bankruptcy of many of the states in the union and possible riots and revolution as people become more and more desperate and have less and less to lose. Let’s say a hurricane in the Gulf picks up mass quantities of oil and toxic chemicals from the sea and deposits them over thousands of homes, lakes, streams, cities, townships, and farms. How viable are those places going to be then? What about all those mortgages that are already upside down anyway? Would it surprise anyone if survivors just packed up, left their keys on the table and headed for Michigan or Ohio where the real estate is dirt cheap?

That would, of course, leave the banksters and the state and local governments holding the bag. The banks would fail, the derivatives would go up in flames, pensions and municipal bonds and just about every financial instrument you can think of would tank. Property taxes could not be collected to pay for municipal services. I mean, I am no financial wizard to be sure. But, it seems to me that alone would be enough to ascertain that we’d go from a “slow crash” scenario to a “fast crash.”

So, I don’t know. Prepare to survive or live each day as if it is your last? Good question. Lately, I find myself listening to favorite recording artists, re-watching my ten best movies, looking through my photo albums, remembering my best times, and being grateful for everything. But, maybe that’s because we’ve already been preparing for five years. I’d rather spend my last days visiting Crater Lake than trekking to Costco for additional gallons of olive oil.

On the other hand, I’d sure hate to check out like those delusional Hale Bot Comet numbskulls did in L.A. and maybe miss something amazing. Something wonderful might pop up like the three morel mushrooms that appeared in our backyard last week. So, let’s go with the preparation scenario. I’ll shut up now and let ras take over….


The Emergency Food Storage Plan That Could Save Your Ass If Things Go Really Wrong

Please note: The information in this article is for informational purposes only. I am NOT responsible for anything you do or do not do with it. Also please note that the elderly, the very young, and those with sensitive stomachs do not adjust well to a sudden, drastic change in diet. Also, this is not a substitute for a ‘store what you eat, eat what you store’ plan. This should be used in addition to that plan for a couple of reason. 1.) In a short-term situation, you should use those stores instead, and 2.) Even in a long term situation, you will want to shift your diet as gradually as possible.

Things are going wrong in a major way. All over the world, the excrement is hitting the fan. What happens if things get so bad that supply chains are interrupted and the grocery store shelves are bare? What if there’s a real famine? What will you do and will you and yours be okay? These once distant possibilities are becoming more real everyday and, if you’re like me, you’re increasingly worried. It’s grim out there, folks, and getting grimmer. The only way to insure your food security is by having enough food stored to get yourself through no matter what happens.
Food storage is an insurance policy. Let me repeat that: having food stored is insurance. Insurance against famine, insurance against natural disaster, insurance against civil unrest. You may never use your car insurance or your homeowners insurance, but you have it anyway. You should have food storage for the same reasons.
How much do you need? A few days, a month, three months, six months, a year? That is up to you, but I would say a month is the bare minimum and I would not be comfortable with less than six months. A year is not too much. Hell, these days two years is not too much. But storing this much food raises its own issues: spoilage, expense, and storage space. I am going to detail a simple, inexpensive way to cover your ass in the event the fan gets clogged from all the crap that’s flying at it. Whether you choose to use it or not is up to you; you may think it’s too extreme or use any number of other options. But at least you’ll have the information.
How much food do you need for 1 person for a year? There are several ways to calculate this. I like this one: http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm The Mormons have a church law that requires them to keep a year’s worth of food on hand at all times, so as you might expect, they’ve gotten pretty good at this.
Here are the totals for one person:
Grains -300 lb
Legumes -60 lb
Fats and oils -13 lb
Sugars -60 lb
Milk and dairy -75 lb
Baking Powder and Baking Soda -1 lb each
Yeast -0.5 a pound
Salt -5 lbs
Vinegar -0.5 a gallon

Notice there’s no meat here. Beans plus whole grains (not white rice) equals a complete protein so you don’t need meat.
That’s a lot of food, and a lot of money. A years worth of grains and legumes for one person from most emergency supply stores, pre-packaged, is well north of $600, plus shipping. A family of two would pay in excess of $1200 just for rice and beans. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot of money for someone like me. How can you reduce the expense?
Do it yourself. You can get the food and package it on your own. Beans are available in any supermarket. Grains can be bought in bulk from health food stores or online. Or you can go to the nearest feed store and buy untreated feed grain. Yes, you read that right. If you store it right it isn’t going to go bad and you can give it to a farming friend when you rotate it. If you have to eat it, you really aren’t going to care. It’s the same thing they use for humans anyway. Fifty pounds of wheat, corn, or oats from a feed store is about $10. That means it would take you sixty bucks to get enough grain to last a year for one person. Not bad. (Don’t tell them you’re going to eat it. They won’t sell it to you.) You can also get fifty pound bags of white rice for $15, but will need to supplement the rice with more protein sources. Do NOT get more than half of your grains in wheat. A lot of people are sensitive to wheat and don’t know it until they try to eat a heavily wheat dependent diet. You don’t want to do this, have to depend on it, and then discover that you or your seven year old has a wheat allergy.
Legumes –most beans are a dollar a pound or less at the store. Split peas are $0.79 a pound. Get mostly dried and a few cans. Be sure to get multiple varieties. Each kind of bean tastes different. Sixty pounds = sixty bucks. Now we’re up to $120 for one person for a year. Still not bad.
Fat and salt –both of these are absolutely required for health. The problem with most modern diets is that we get too much of both of these for the amount of physical activity we get. Fats tend to go rancid within a year, so you’ll have to rotate these constantly. You can buy a years worth of whatever you normally use and work through it with your ‘store what you eat, eat what you store’ plan. The only exceptions to this are peanut butter and lard. Unopened peanut butter lasts for years, is cheap, and is also a really good source of protein. Lard is cheap and will last for years, but it’s also incredibly bad for you. Salt is going to be the cheapest part; you can buy 10 pounds of salt for two dollars. Put up as much as you possibly can –it is required for life, it’s a good food preservative, a good seasoning, and a trade good. So, $25 for both fat and salt brings us to $145 per person. Call it $150.
Sugar –sugar is a good sweetener and good preservative. Fifty pounds will set you back less than $25 bucks. Milk and dairy are up to you. A lot of people don’t use dairy. Add in the miscelleanous items and you’re up to $200 a person. For a year of food. Not bad for insurance. Fill in as you can afford with vegetables and so forth, but this will take care of your bulk caloric requirements. There are three other items not on the calculator that are absolutely necessary. The first is a good multivitamin. In good times or bad times you need a vitamin, but especially in the bad times. This will ensure that you’re getting all your nutritional requirements. The second is a store of seeds so that you can grow more food. The third –as many spices and seasonings as you can get your hands on.
Now for storage. You need something to put all of this food in. Go down to Home Depot and buy yourself a bunch of their orange buckets with the air tight gasket lids. These cost about $2.50 each, with tax. You can also buy brand new empty paint cans; the only requirement is that they have air tight lids. Don’t just pour the food inside; plastic imparts strange odors to food, so you need a liner. You can use a mylar bag, a paper bag, or anything else that will work. Now you need to remove the oxygen from the environment so that the food can’t degrade. You can buy oxygen absorbers online. They cost about $15.00 for a hundred of them. Or, you know those hand warming packets? They have the same chemicals in them. Activate a couple, throw them in each bucket, and put a lid on right away. Or, don’t fill the bucket quite all the way, put a tealight on top of the food, light it, and put the lid on. The candle will go out once it burns up the oxygen. You will have to look up ways to use this food if you should ever need it –cooking it is a little more complex than opening a can. If you want to be able to make flour, you’ll need to find a grain mill or something similar.
Rotation guidelines: Grains and legumes –once every ten years. Sugar –once every five. Yeast, baking soda, baking powder –use these and replace as needed. Fat –once a year. Salt –never.
All told you’re looking at about $300 a person for an insurance plan that could literally save your life. That to me is not a bad investment.
Where do you store this stuff? In closets, under the bed (in case of the paint cans), in corners, anywhere you can find. Just don’t put the food in the garage or an outbuilding –unprotected buildings cause food to degrade faster, and leave it more open to pests.
A note about pets: don’t forget them. You have to store food for them as well. Dogs are omnivores, and like humans, can eat a vegetarian diet if it’s planned right. But cats are carnivores and absolutely MUST have meat. So throw a few cases of canned cat food under your bed for your feline friend. She’ll also help feed herself on the moles and mice that will inevitably attack your garden or get into your house.

Well, that's "food for thought" for now. Next, maybe we'll list some handy gadgets and other non-edibles that are handy things to have.

What to Do Until the Apocalypse Comes

\
a mountain man rendezvous


By freeacre

Charles Hugh Smith had a post up this week (6/11) about envisioning collapse scenarios that are more positive than Hollywood would have us imagining. Perhaps, if the global economy as we know it disintegrates due to its own over leveraging, resource depletion, and moral rot, and we peasants are reduced to living a real life rather than going to the mall, things won’t have to look like Road Warrior after all.

If the disaster in the Gulf plays out for the next couple of years with an almost unimaginable amount of oil and toxic fumes, it would likely lead to thousands of people heading to the wastelands of Michigan and the Rust Belt. And, if by then, China will have had to increase the value of their money and ours has tanked, we will importing a LOT less stuff. So, real things that people will require to live, will begin to be made in this country by innovative neighbors and small businesses. Even if we did not import much of anything for awhile, we have lots of materials to make things out of if we simply begin to mine the land fills.

I doubt that rat-eating zombie hordes will be coming out of the woodwork when the sun goes down, or that aliens will be crawling out of holes they have been hiding in while waiting for us to go back to the gold standard. I also doubt that roving gangs of skin-heads, Latinos, Blacks, Asians, Scotch-Irish, or any other ethnically identifiable groups will be ravaging the country-side looting and pillaging. Historically, bullies can be counted on to pick on their own neighbors. They seldom leave their own neighborhoods. Once the people figure that they are on their own to defend themselves, I have a feeling that the bad guys will be taken out pretty quickly. Most people are pretty good folks who don’t want any trouble. There are many good people who have experience in the armed forces that I doubt are going to just sit around and allow friends and family to be intimidated and robbed. Right now, people are pretty much disarmed. They may have guns but they are useless unless you don’t mind going to jail for defending yourself.

When I lived in Jamaica, the poor did have a big problem with “tiefs.” Thieves would actually enter the homes of people like my housecleaner and rip them off while they pretended to sleep. But, it was illegal in Jamaica for good people to have guns. It ain’t the same here. Something tells me that the bad apples are known. And, they will get right, or they won’t be around too long. In fact, I believe that when people no longer look to the government for help, they will begin to renew fraternal organizations, build alliances, strengthen church groups, and pull together in ways that will amaze us all.



The seeds to re-create ourselves have already been planted. People are pretty sick of the greater corporate mentality already. Why do you think goofy folks in costumes are running around in the woods all over the place? Witness our mountain man friends in the top picture. Here’s another one of my brother (on the right) with his wife and his Scottish Highland buddy with their kilts at Highland Games. Think of the Renaissance Faires, Burning Man celebrations, Native American Pow-Wows, and even the Star Trek conventions. All these groups have one thing in common – people who would love to turn their backs on the soul-sucking dominant culture that we have now, and go for a simpler, more satisfying and inspiring lifestyle not centered around money and Wally World. They are all nescient intentional communities.

Our allegiance is reflected in what we wear. The banksters and Overlords wear suits and “power ties” as uniforms to inform us of their status. The hippies made an anti-war and anti-corporate statement with their long hair and bell-bottomed jeans. So do the Amish, with their colonial clothing and horse and buggies as they shun the “English”. They did not wait for their ideas to catch on before they changed their lifestyle. They changed their lifestyle and made the change happen, at least for themselves. The Mall Rats and those we think of as “sheeple” announce their compliance with the powers that be in their designer jeans and newly bought clothing and contrivances.

We don’t need to wait for pioneer or wiccan or Renaissance, or cowboy clothing to be sold at Penney’s to start to look different. Personally, I like the “ma Kent” look. I loved Superman comics as a child, and somehow got the idea that ma Kent was my ideal older woman. I’ve been wearing clothes that look like 30’s housedresses for awhile now. Soon, I am going to sew some pioneer bonnets and aprons to go with my dresses and walk around town looking like a pioneer. Why not? They are comfortable, functional, homemade, non-corporate – and fun! Shit, I’m too fat for a Na’vi, or I’d be painting myself blue and wearing a feathered headdress and dangling ear cuffs. The point is to announce the fact that you are resisting The Man and the materialistic, sick, debt serfdom that goes with it. Just as the Amish have always refused to comply with the greater culture and have demonstrated a clear alternative, we can do the same.

I say, “Go for it.” Do it now and avoid the rush. A revolution of thought and action is at hand. The dissolution of our former way of being is happening all around us, whether we like it or not. We can desperately try to hold on to business as usual and somehow pretend that we have the resources and wherewithal to extend our stranglehold on the planet and its resources. But, it will only lead to more suffering and grief and damage to the planet. And, there is going to be enough of that already.

Let’s offer ourselves and our neighbors something else. A memory or a vision of a better time in the past that can lead to a happier time in the future… simpler, friendlier, smarter, more generous, co-operative, and sustainable way of living. More free and more powerful, imaginative, and fun as well!

-- carry on the conversation from the last post, Guys. Good stuff!

CHOPPING WOOD AND TOTING WATER

Henny Penny telling me how it is.

A chickadee joins the conversation briefly

CHOPPING WOOD AND TOTING WATER from Murph

While I am out making big pieces of wood into smaller pieces of wood that I can get in the wood burner to heat the shop, I find myself mulling over all the information that I see every day on the web, on the TV and in magazine articles and other print media. During this forced bout of exercise the chickens and dog hang around under my feet and getting in the way of splitting a 20” round and I have to keep shooing them all away, being afraid of them getting hurt in the act of swinging a deadly instrument with all the force my aging body can produce. After 8 or 10 swings, I have to rest a bit, I sit down and the chickens gather round and peck into the ground looking for the mostly non existent tasty bugs they expect to find. That’s when the conversation with Henny Penny begins (our oldest barred rock hen). She exhibits that old phrase that wisdom comes with age, (she is 5 now). I sit on a log panting from my exertions, and venting my frustrations at the insanity I see and read about going on in the world. She clucks and does her “yuuuurp” comments without much enthusiasm, castigating me for being such a slacker. Sort of a “this should have been done a month ago” type of complaint.

Upon reflection of my comments concerning the financial bull shit going on, I was informed that living beings really didn’t need money. The implication was that since she and the other troops in the flock didn’t need money, and obviously the rabbits and the chipmunks and local squirrels didn’t, I shouldn’t either. When I pointed out that her feed necessitated having money to buy it, she just shook her head and took another dust bath.

When I expressed my frustration with the local politics and how stupid and unproductive they were and how destructive they were on the local population she invited me to take a dust bath with her, saying it would calm my nerves.

So ignoring the little voice in my head that said the Freeacre wouldn’t approve and just might call 911 if she caught me, I squirmed around on the ground , making a shallow depression and flipped dust and sand all over myself. Henny Penny was very approving and commented “now doesn’t that feel better”? As I lay there with my imaginary wings spread out in the sunlight I had to admit that yeh, it felt good, although I did feel a bit stupid.

About this time some more of the flock came around and commented on the goings on. Henny was encouraging and told the rest that I was just learning to relax and enjoy the sunshine since I was all wound up over the goings on of the human critters.

I finally got up, dusted off and split another round, and low and behold, there were some tasty bugs in the center. Henny commented: “See how easy that was”?

Seeing how the day was going I sat down on a log again and the rest of the flock (except for Henny) drifted off to look for morsels elsewhere. I talked about the oil leak in the Gulf and how that had the potential of being a world wide catastrophe and could lead to whole animal specie extinctions and a vast reduction in world wide food supplies. Henny tut tutted and commented there would always be tasty bugs to eat, if they could be found that is. I expressed a bit of dismay on that and said that I wasn’t too enthusiastic about a diet of bugs. She just shrugged her wings.

So I thought I would try another line of conversation. I talked about the aerosol spraying and how it contaminated the ground and water and had a lot of known and unknown health affects on all the biota it came in contact with. That caught her attention. She zoomed off to the rest of the flock and there issued a long conversation among them. Henny ambled back and looking me right in the eye asked; “Are you humans’ nuts or something? Why would you do something like that?” I replied that it was just another example of the craziness and arrogance of humans and how concerned I was about it. She stared at me for a bit, commented that she didn’t know why the rest of the living things on this earth put up with us, ruffled her feathers and took another dust bath. Since I figured that I had pushed my luck far enough with Freeacre, I declined to again join Henny in her luxurious bath.

About this time, Brie, our big dog, came over and laid down close by. This brought the flock over again and they started jumping on her back and pecking at her hair. Brie tolerated this for a few minutes and then wondered off doing dog things. Henny’s terse comment was “see how simple it all is?”

We currently have 16 adult chickens, including one aging rooster, and 4 young ones, periodically, a couple of hens will get into some kind of disagreement and start a fight. In which case, the rooster comes over and settles it, separating the warring hens and chastising the aggressor. It seems to work for them and harmony is soon restored. I will admit that I scratch my head over this happening and wonder what lesson I should learn from it.

Now the point of all this revelation on relationships? No matter how complex, no matter how bad circumstances become, no matter what predicaments humans find themselves in, we still have to chop wood and tote water. We still have to be concerned with the basics of living. As horrible as all the events we see unfolding around us, we still have to provide the basics to stay alive. I do think it is a good thing to be aware of what is happening in our local community and the world at large, we do have to have some understanding of when to duck and cover, when to change what we are doing to try and preserve some dignity and values we hold dear, to communicate with the natural world around us and to not take personally the complexity and artificial life that is predominate. We still need to take stock of what we have and need, now and in the near future and give thanks for what the universe provides. If what the universe provides is not enough as we think about it, well that’s just too damned bad, get used to it. You figure on living forever on this plane of existence? Between the furry and feathery entities that populate our existence, there is still much to learn about simplifying our lives, about how to join together in mutual problem solving, in mutual enjoyment and cooperation. Heh heh. It’s the anarchist way of life that our chickens can teach us.

The Last Ones

freeacre

Who were the last ones? How did they feel?
The last of the European monolith builders, those
Gentle women who built the round stone houses,
Knew the herbs, nursed the villagers to health with
Full and wondrous breasts full of life and love for their people…
Who were the Last Ones?

Or the Hopi people, watching the exodus from the cliffs, leaving
Behind the dwellings carved by the fathers of tens of generations.
Deserted by the animals and the grasses that had
Been their hope and the Gods that had been their life.

Or the followers of the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV - those gentle believers of only one great and good and omnipotent God who was the source of love and grace and beauty and peace. And when the vulgar hordes took over, and the last devotee turned his eyes to the likeness of Nefertiti in despair, what did he say to his children?

Or how about the Essenes, so pure of heart and intention that all the women were called virgins and all the men were brothers. So smart and visionary that they called for the Son of God Himself to teach once again that we are all one.

What were the arguments used against them? That their messages were impractical? That their methods were ineffective? That their leaders must be replaced with those who were more effective, more ruthless, more efficient, more sophisticated, better financed?

Suppose we consult the few remaining Children of the Earth who still keep in touch with the Great Spirit, or the Aboriginal people or the American Transcendentalists. What do we say to our children and neighbors? That we have never been good at defending ourselves? That these staggeringly vulgar and dense morons just don’t “get it”? That we’ll come back someday – born again in a new land and repeat the message in a new language and that maybe next time they’ll listen?

I know that if I were to ask the Dali lama, “How do you live with the despair and failure?” he’d advise me to calm down, take a breath, turn within, and contemplate the nature of Impermanence.

But, I cannot live with this happening again. The darkness must be kept back this time. I must sit down between the battle lines and inform each warring faction that the At-one-ment is at hand.

This time, let’s make our sense of separation from the Earth and from each other impermanent. I do not want to walk this path again.

I wrote that piece a good ten years ago while I was a practitioner in the Carson City Church of Religious Science. Happily, they were able to support me despite my variance with the usual metaphysical happy talk. I will always be grateful to those lovely people.

I hearken back to it now because once again, this seems like the End of Days. We anticipated the real estate crash, and the depletion of resources. We have mitigated these events by getting out of debt, reducing our expenditures, stocking up on food and supplies, raising vegetables, chickens, and rabbits. We have reached out to our local community, joined the Grange, got very involved with local politics, and created our cyber campfire. The tribe of people that have gathered here provides each other with good information and emotional support in this challenging time. Once again, I am grateful for the people who have opened their hearts and minds to us and to each other.

But, I have to admit, that I did not imagine the cascade of disasters that seem to be hitting us all at once. The Oil Catastrophe, the “Sun Sickness,” the death of the fisheries, the ruination of the corral reefs, real possibility of nuclear exchange, and the dire predictions of Patrick Geryl regarding 2012, have got me identifying with that woolly mammoth found frozen in the ice with a mouthful of petrified grass.

Mike Ruppert told the secessionists in Vermont that it is prudent to make plans to do without the federal government because it is about to fall apart anyway and we cannot count on help from it at any rate. Go to his website and view the video of his address to them. He pulls no punches. (Act II From the Wilderness)

It seems to me that almost all the countries of the world are falling victim to the malfeasance of the Central Banks and financiers much as the turtles, fish, and wetlands are about to be snuffed by the oil spreading out in the waters and onto the shores. God only knows what the natural gas that accompanies the oil will do to the air. There is very little information on it anywhere.

Can it get any worse? Well, yeah…. It seems that tremendously large magnetic filament that we’ve been watching on the sun has just erupted, and a large coronal mass ejection should be arriving on earth Wednesday or Thursday. Don’t actually know if it will just be a super light show in the sky over Canada, or whether it will disrupt the electrical grid. Better fill up the gas tank, just in case the pumps don’t work at the end of the week. Oi vey…. Just in time for the beginning of hurricane season.

So, I guess it’s little wonder that my mind is turning to saying goodby to all that I know and love, even as I plant marigolds, basil, lavender, yellow pear tomatoes, Easter Egg radishes, and my new Trail of Tears beans, to name just a few.

Thank Heavens for gardens. Their very nature demands that you envision that there is a future and that these amazing plant people are going to take their place in it. The little chicks are running around outside now while the older ones are digging holes and taking luxurious dust baths. The rabbits seem content to munch grasses and watch the goings on around them. The rooster, Big Red, continues to escort each of his ladies into the hen house to lay her egg and celebrate with her when the deed has been accomplished.

Murph is stacking wood (got eight cords so far) and tanning hides. I’m sitting here roasting meat for the dog and trying to come to terms with it all. I guess some things don’t change.

aho

The Beauty of Simplicy

comfort food: biscuits and lamb & barley stew



"Trapper" Ray's old simple home



by murph

On this blog we talk about a rather large variety of circumstances, happenings and speculations. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find it pretty much overwhelming. Let’s face it, we are in a period of history when complexity is dominating our lives, either in fact or as a side effect. This complexity is leading to all kinds of additional problems within society which sure seems to me to be obvious. The newest example would be the oil leak in the Gulf.

Looking at a couple of these complex systems is worth while. Some of the most obvious are the supply of water, electricity, food and warmth, the absolute basics. We know that our food chain is very fragile and subject to disruption or even failing altogether under the right circumstances. We are also aware of the electrical grid, a monster of complexity that is subject to massive failure for large amounts of people. Water is now a big issue. Fresh potable water is an extremely small percentage of the total water on this planet, only about 3%. With huge human populations, the technology and complex system to make it available is also quite fragile. The same can be said for supplying heat to human habitation which is highly dependent on a diminishing supply of hydrocarbons and the complexity of the distribution system.

On April 28, The Archdruid blog posted a long essay on the “The Costs of Complexity”. He has talked about this in other postings. In fact, many other authors have approached this subject from the standpoint that complexity always reaches a point of diminishing returns, and if restlessly pursued, will eventually collapse the whole system. It seems obvious to me that adding layers of complexity to either solve problems or to enhance someone’s gain is ultimately doomed to failure.

From a population standpoint, increasing complexity creates confusion and an almost total inability to see the bigger picture outside of single issue concern. This confusion appears to me to be the biggest problem we have in modern society today. Groups have been formed that want to deal with individual issues as if they are discreet and have no relationship to anything else. Pick any group you wish; tea party, PETA, the environmentalists, political parties and their ideologies, tax protesters, any of them. They all treat their favorite issues as discreet entries in human existence. It sure doesn’t appear to me that this works at all. Thus we have a fractured, confused and angry population that has shown itself unable to affect any meaningful changes in the status quo.

Personally, I suspect that this overlying complexity is deliberate. It keeps the populations from understanding their situation and wresting control from the elites by keeping attention on a minimum of favorite issues instead of seeing a bigger picture of control and greed.

The world’s financial and economic systems suffer from the same problem, over complexity, and we have in our face the result of that. Taking a rough count, it appears to me that for every pundit declaring that everything is under control, that we live in freedom, that the good times are just around the corner there are 5-10 pundits that declare that we are doomed, that we cannot continue in the same path that we have been on for a couple of hundred years now. If that count is at least close, how come more people do not take notice? I suspect that to recognize a disaster is coming means that a radical change in life style must also come. And who in hell wants to give up the big screen TV, the IPhone, the big SUV, the 3000 sq ft living space, the toys and accruements of our modern life? Very few will do it voluntarily. The concept that our personal worth is contained in the amount of “things” we possess has permeated most of western thinking. If we give up “things”, we diminish our self worth.

I have a short true story. We have become acquainted with a man in his 90’s over the last year or so. He is one of the last of the old timers in this area, comes from a family that was one of the very earliest settlers around here. We met him through our engagement with the Grange. He impressed us with his gentleness, generosity and humor. Although, I have met people that have known him longer than we have and say that “old Ray didn’t take shit from anyone”. He spent a lot of years selling hides from trapping until he got so old that he couldn’t walk his trap lines anymore. He just recently became enfeebled enough that he had to go into a local assisted living facility. His relatives came in and are in the process of selling off all that he had and also sold the property, which was designated a historical landmark locally. Ray lived pretty much in an early or pre 1900 life style and his house is the original building his parents put up. A great example of how people lived back then. We heard that his son was cleaning up the property and was having a sale of his stuff. We went over to see what was going on. The son and two older ladies (one I think a grand daughter) were masked and cleaning up the inside of the house. Freeacre expressed awe and pleasure at the interior of the tiny little house and was expressing wonderment at how he lived. The two ladies looked at us like we were from another planet. We had gone there to see if there were any hides left from his trapping days, particularly skunk hides since I am learning how to tan hides for usefulness. All that was left was 4 skunk tails that the son gave me. LOL Not sure just what I will do with them yet. When we went back outside, the two women nearly jumped out of their skins and took 4 quick steps back when they saw the tails. (Dirty filthy things you know, but I did notice they wore leather shoes)

Like a lot of people that age, Ray was an accumulator, never threw much of anything away. Boxes and boxes of bottles, scrap steel piles, a lot of stuff that for modern life is not acceptable to keep around. But when you talk to the oldsters still alive from the last depression, it made perfect sense, you don’t just throw stuff away, for next week or next month you will make use of it. When I lived in Arkansas, I met a lot of old- timers just like that, never threw anything away, and if you needed some damned little widget to fix something, they usually had at least a couple of them hung up with bailing wire out in the shed.

The point of this story you ask? Well, we are living in a society known for it proclivity to throw away almost everything and buy new. I assert that this can not and will not continue and most people simply are not able to understand the complexity of our society that has made that, not only possible but desirable. The disdain expressed by Ray’s relatives at his life style was very easily discernable. I truly wonder how they are going to handle life when the throw away society is no longer viable, when you can no longer buy cheap shit that is soon to be added to our tremendous piles of junk and garbage. Look around you, how many home appliances and tools can be repaired by a home repair man anymore? As a society we are completely dependent on the massive complex systems that are not only fragile, but are rapidly becoming unsustainable from a variety of circumstances that sure appear to be eminent.

In light of projections of future events, I guess I will continue to stockpile my piles of wood, metal and parts, along with the tools and knowledge to fix stuff instead of throwing away everything that has no immediate use.

Out of Control

trying to herd the un-herdable

by freeacre

I’ve been thinking about control lately. Yesterday, the news featured a story where a seventeen year old was running around (like many goofy attention-seeking people have done) at a baseball game. Instead of running him down and pulling him off the field, the police face-planted him with a taser weapon. It seems a few in the audience thought that was a bit of an over reaction, but most thought the kid deserved it. He was “out of control.”


Then there was the hideous piece on Raw Story about fitting disabled kids with electronic devises that produce strong electrical shocks to children who piss off the staff for one reason or another:
”The rights group submitted their report this week, titled "Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults with Disabilities at the Judge Rotenberg Center," after an in-depth investigation revealed use of restraint boards, isolation, food deprivation and electric shocks in efforts to control the behaviors of its disabled and emotionally troubled students.

Findings in the MDRI report include the center's practice of subjecting children to electric shocks on the legs, arms, soles of feet and torso -- in many cases for years -- as well as some for more than a decade. Electronic shocks are administered by remote-controlled packs attached to a child's back called a Graduated Electronic Decelerators (GEI).
The disabilities group notes that stun guns typically deliver three to four milliamps per shock. GEI packs, meanwhile, shock students with 45 milliamps -- more than ten times the amperage of a typical stun gun.
A former employee of the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids."

I worked with emotionally disturbed kids in residential treatment for sixteen years, and this story almost made me physically ill. I don’t’ care if the kid is Hannibal the Cannibal, you just should not do this to anyone. Period.
“Pain aversion therapy” is what they call it. Sounds like torture to me. Abu Grabe torture. Guantanemo Bay torture. The kind of tactics apparently promoted on propaganda programs (pogroms) like “24” on television. I assume this, as I have never been able to sit through an entire episode. Is it still on? Whatever…. The damage has already been done.

Between television programs, movies, and video games that “entertain” the greater populace with portrayals of institutionalized pain inflicted by authority figures on the non-compliant, people by the millions have become desensitized to the suffering of others, and anesthetized to any sense of outrage. It probably helps that so many are also on anti-depressant drugs – or maybe it’s the fluoride in the water.

Somehow we have become convinced that everything needs to be controlled. So now we can have surveillance 24/7 of our whereabouts, our e-mail, or conversations – even our thoughts. New gadgets that can read our minds, “smart dust” nano-technology (see cryptogon.com) that will be dropped all over the planet and monitor virtually everything. Oh, that makes me feel so much safer… go ahead and spray mace into the eyes of tree-hugging protesters who are already kneeling with their arms handcuffed behind their backs. Fuck them and their stupid trees. They are out of control. Go ahead and search my luggage, pin-point me with my cell phone, put an rfid chip in my drivers license (or my inner arm), stream advertisements into my head in the department store. Read my mind. Disrobe and X-ray me. Whatever.

“Inalienable rights.. to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”” You’ve got to be kidding. That is so, like, pre-nine eleven…

I continue to be haunted by the movie, “The Lovely Bones.” I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling the whole plot. But, suffice it to say, that it concerns the excruciating process of dealing with a horrible and tragic murder of a child. It points to a larger concern – how do we react to a hideous situation that we cannot control, cannot make right, cannot make go away, cannot change? It seems for most of us, we try to control it with ever escalating tactics. More and more power, money, muscle focused and used to get our way and make it happen. More and more drugs and surgery or debt to stave off old age and death. More and more hardware, weaponry, manipulation, lies, whatever we can think of to maintain the status quo.
Until it just doesn’t work anymore. Then what? Eventually, you throw your hands in the air and surrender. “I give up.” Death, at that point, doesn’t seem so bad. In fact, it may be benign – wondrous even… a new direction. A better possibility than we have considered. And, the left behind, might just come back to what is rather than what could have been. Starting from “what is” may turn out to have its own sweetness in time

All this brings me back around to what is going on with the larger issues that we cannot control and must eventually come to accept and learn to make the best of. If we are not able to do this, we will become more monstrous than the threats that we perceive.

The Oxymoron of a Politically Stable State in Belgium

...this is a picture of the tortoise Hot Springs Wizard recently brought to a place of refuge out in the boonies, and free from the human-induced turmoil exemplified by the following post.

Getting back to the "real world," which often seems even stranger than our other-worldly speculations, our friend from Belgium updates us on the dysfunction of the State of Belgium. I thought we had it bad....


by our friend from Belgium

Belgian politics is like an oil and water emulsion which now and again starts to separate out before someone comes along to give it a good stir up. In the same way as a camel is said to be a horse designed by a committee the Belgian political system could only have been designed by such a committee.


First a little bit of history which I will keep simple since I do not know the in depth stuff myself. 150 years ago Belgium did not exist, the land which is now called Belgium was part of The Netherlands or Holland as some called it in earlier times and it bordered on Northern France. French speaking people populated the Ardennes which is the scenic hilly region north of the French border although French influence continued to a lesser extent through Flanders, the flat part, up to the river Schelde. At that time the French speakers were prosperous and elitist but the tables have turned and they are now poor and elitist. Wallonia, the political area of Belgium occupied by French speaking people (or The Ardennes) hangs at the bottom of every European monitoring scale making it an officially depressed area whilst the Dutch speaking part to the north is one of the economic powerhouses of Europe.

In the early 60’s when the Vlaardingen were coming into the ascendency and flexing their muscles, relations between the two groups had deteriorated to the extent that there was civil unrest with attacks and reprisals between opposing factions. There was a solution imposed or reluctantly agreed which was as well thought through as the division of Palestine. This is where the committee really got into action and came up with the best fix which all could agree on but which really suited no one. There was to be a local assembly (parliament) for the Dutch speakers in the north. People who live in defined Vlaanders could vote for a Dutch speaking representative. A similar situation existed in Wallonia for the French speakers. The capital Brussels was officially bilingual, even though 90% of the inhabitants speak French and inhabitants could vote for either a French or Dutch speaking representative. Each group therefore had its own assembly. In addition to this there is an overall umbrella national parliament to coordinate the other three groups. All this for a total population if eleven million people. Now here is where it gets tricky because there are not one but two complicating factors which have been a running sore for fifty years now. Firstly, unlike the USA or the UK, Belgium does not have a first past the post electoral system where the party with the most votes is the one which forms the government. Most countries within Continental Western Europe have a Proportional Representation system whereby the administration is a coalition of parties which can form a majority in the proportion in which citizens voted for them. This is a system designed for mediocrity and shoddy compromises. The party with the highest votes can invite other parties to join it and is the party which generally calls the shots but sometimes the tail can trip up the beast. The trouble with this is that the Prime minister (they call him a “Voorzitter” or Chairman here) and the National Cabinet can and often is made up of people that many of the citizens could not have voted for.

The second and more major problem is that the administrative line which separates Dutch speaking Belgium from French speaking Belgium runs ten to fifteen miles south of the southern limit of (90% French speaking) Brussels so that the Capital is landlocked within the Dutch speaking part. For all these years the French speakers have been demanding an administrative corridor between the capital and their bit. Shared responsibility has been tried where the French speakers ran the local councils directly to the south of Brussels and the Dutch speakers ran the police, fire services and other similar bodies. There are two reasonably sized towns in this area, Halle and Vilvoorde and this is where the crux of the problem lies. Citizens who need access to their representative are fed up, I mean truly fed up trying to deal with an official who refuses to speak with them in their mother tongue. Maybe you have heard the shorthand expression B-H-V (Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde); this is what it is about. When this system clearly wasn’t working the people from the area in question were accorded the same rights as those in Brussels but it didn’t really eliminate the tensions. The French speakers have agreed to abandon the area to the Dutch speakers but they want their quid pro quo in the form of an enlarged Brussels. This amounts to just moving the problem somewhere else since other parts of Vlanders will become Brussels. In order to bring the problem to a head the legislative branch ordained that there could be no future elections until Halle - Vilvoorde was separated from Brussels, in other words they could no longer choose between Dutch OR French speakers to represent them because this was unfair to other areas of Vlaanders and so some Dutch speaking areas would remain as before whilst some parts of the Dutch area would become totally administered by the French speakers. On Friday last, in a political move, the Open VLD (Vlams Liberal Democrats) walked out of the national assembly leaving it without a majority. There have been frantic efforts by three former Prime Ministers over the weekend to find a solution but the only suitable party, the socialists have sat on their hands and today the national government fell. The difficulty is that the King cannot call for a new election because that is illegal until the B-H-V separation is carried out and this apparently is an insoluble problem. You should also be aware that the Dutch speakers make no territorial claims on the soil of the French speaking people.

Apart from the political considerations above there are also economic and social issues. In order to all get along and be one Belgium together, Vlanders gives Wallonia one billion Euros every month, just to stay afloat. The French speakers take the money and in return give the north that Dick Cheney look where it appears everybody in the room has farted at the same time. Surprisingly the largest French political party by far is the socialists. This reminds me of a very old rhyme, you will know how old it is because the UK decimalised its currency in 1972. Before that there were twelve pennies in a shilling.

What is a Socialist?
One who has yearnings
To share equal profits
From unequal earnings
Be an idler or bungler
Or both, he is willing
To fork out his sixpence
And pocket your shilling.

This perceived altruism is too much for some in the north where a xenophobic Nationalist Party has strong roots, particularly in the Antwerp region. This party used to be known as the Vlaams Bloc with a double meaning in the word bloc. In one sense it can be like the former Russian Bloc or it can mean to stand in the way and prevent something. What they were in favour of denying was unlimited entry into Belgium of people from Africa and Turkey. They take the view that jobs can be outsourced without ever leaving the country. In a court case they were judged to be a racial organisation so they changed their name to the Vlaams Belang which means the importance of coming from northern Belgium. They run poster campaigns in Arabic saying Vlaams jobs for Vlaams people and in a heartbeat they would cut Wallonia loose as a separate state.

There are social problems too. Apart from being the capital city, Brussels is also home to the European Parliament and NATO Headquarters. The strain on living accommodation in a defined area is intense and with predictable results people, mostly French speaking people are moving outside the circle and into Halle – Vilvoorde. The Dutch speakers who have always lived there feel they are being populated out. As an example someone went to the baker to find that the shop had been taken over by French only speakers and the shopper didn’t know how to say “Whole wheat bread” in French. Some local authorities in the B-H-V region encourage people who wish to relocate to sell their houses to Dutch speaking families. This recently resulted in a French speaking woman who split up from her husband being refused a house near her children’s school even though she was a Belgian citizen. This resulted in accusations of apartheid being thrown around. In Vlaams schools, pupils from age ten are required to learn French. In Wallonia, pupils can choose between an hour a week English or an hour a week Dutch. Most figure that English will be the most useful to them so they never learn Dutch. When French and Dutch speakers meet they therefore default into French to the chagrin of the northerners. Sometimes they will agree to speak in English but this perceived French laziness gives them the upper hand.

This piece gives you some background to what is going on here but de facto Belgium has no government and it is illegal to hold elections until an insoluble problem is sorted out. These are interesting times – watch and wait.