Spam, spam, spam, spam...
I'm ready for the spam...I'm sure those who are sending me hot stock tips and information about pool and spa supplies are reading my posts in depth.
I am glad that my Broncos won decisively today in Jacksonville. After Denver got trounced 34-10 in Miami on opening day, I never would have guessed they'd be 3-1 three weeks later. Here's hoping for something more than a first-round playoff loss this year...
Now, on to the real happy stuff:
Twenty years ago, I started my freshman year at Stanford, hoping that I might become a civil rights attorney, or a Democratic officeholder, or a public policy expert of some kind. I certainly didn't anticipate playing music for a living.
I thought that, barring freakish circumstances, my life would be like that of millions of others: go to school, pursue a career hopefully of my own choosing, continually adapt to new technologies, build satisfying personal and professional relationships...
What I didn't anticipate was the potential need to grow my own food, make my own clothing, and find my own water for drinking, cleaning, and bathing, as if I lived in rural Massachusetts in 1830.
Two years ago, anyone who talked about the End of Oil (that is, petroleum depletion) was either ignored or dismissed as some Luddite alarmist. Now, the End of Oil is in the mainstream press on a regular basis: how will cities survive, how will we cope without cars, how will suburbia fare, how will agriculture work, et cetera...
Having read James Howard Kunstler and a piece by Tim Holt in today's edition of www.sfgate.com, I'm politically restless, yet again. Look at what we're facing right now-- consumer confidence is dropping like a stone in anticipation of natural gas price hikes, and people are already cutting back on their driving with gas at $3.00 a gallon. Even Dubya is pushing for gas conservation! And the shit ain't even close to hitting the fan...
Of course, there have been those who have been pushing for conservation and renewal energy for decades, but again, most of them have been either dismissed or vehemently disparaged in the style of Eric Cartman: "No one wants to hear your commie fag tree-huggin' hippie crap! This is America, beeyatch!"
The whole propagated myth of American invincibility is the ultimate triumph of consumer culture: no limits, unbridled freedom of mobility, perpetual abundance of bigger and better goods...the culture of advertising, of course, is nothing other than the creation of Fantasy Magicland, and those who have never bothered to contrast reality with Fantasy Magicland will be the people likely to suffer the most emotional trauma from having to make the necessary adjustments to a world where Perpetual Abundance no longer exists.
Any politician who fails to sell the Fantasy Magicland vision to voters doesn't have a chance. We want our politicians to assure us that the future will be nothing but Onward and Upward, yet we despise politicians as liars and crooks.
Although many people are nervous about the immediate future, I think there's an underlying belief in most that it'll just be a temporary downturn-- you know, "business cycles" and all that. What isn't figured into the equation is the absence of one key resource on which our entire civilization depends...
You're not going to convince me that a nation of nearly 300 million people will be able to make a rapid adjustment (could be 5 years, could be 30) to life without adequate supplies of petroleum-- not only the supply of gas will be affected, of course: we're talking about fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and countless other necessities.
So you can either drink (or similarly abuse) yourself to death, or further indulge in Fantasy Magicland, or you can start to seriously consider other ways to exist. Even greater political vigilance is required: the overwhelming majority of politicians are fully bought and paid for by corporate interests, obviously, so the only solution is voter vigilance. I don't know what else to do about that.
On the plus side, I just signed up online to join the Solar Living Institute's e-mail list. I might make a visit up there soon (it's in Hopland, California, roughly 100 miles north of San Francisco). They have classes related to renewable energy (passive solar energy, food cultivation, and permaculture, for starters). Check out www.solarliving.org. We are going to have to prepare for life after car culture viability-- might as well prepare for some alternatives.
I am glad that my Broncos won decisively today in Jacksonville. After Denver got trounced 34-10 in Miami on opening day, I never would have guessed they'd be 3-1 three weeks later. Here's hoping for something more than a first-round playoff loss this year...
Now, on to the real happy stuff:
Twenty years ago, I started my freshman year at Stanford, hoping that I might become a civil rights attorney, or a Democratic officeholder, or a public policy expert of some kind. I certainly didn't anticipate playing music for a living.
I thought that, barring freakish circumstances, my life would be like that of millions of others: go to school, pursue a career hopefully of my own choosing, continually adapt to new technologies, build satisfying personal and professional relationships...
What I didn't anticipate was the potential need to grow my own food, make my own clothing, and find my own water for drinking, cleaning, and bathing, as if I lived in rural Massachusetts in 1830.
Two years ago, anyone who talked about the End of Oil (that is, petroleum depletion) was either ignored or dismissed as some Luddite alarmist. Now, the End of Oil is in the mainstream press on a regular basis: how will cities survive, how will we cope without cars, how will suburbia fare, how will agriculture work, et cetera...
Having read James Howard Kunstler and a piece by Tim Holt in today's edition of www.sfgate.com, I'm politically restless, yet again. Look at what we're facing right now-- consumer confidence is dropping like a stone in anticipation of natural gas price hikes, and people are already cutting back on their driving with gas at $3.00 a gallon. Even Dubya is pushing for gas conservation! And the shit ain't even close to hitting the fan...
Of course, there have been those who have been pushing for conservation and renewal energy for decades, but again, most of them have been either dismissed or vehemently disparaged in the style of Eric Cartman: "No one wants to hear your commie fag tree-huggin' hippie crap! This is America, beeyatch!"
The whole propagated myth of American invincibility is the ultimate triumph of consumer culture: no limits, unbridled freedom of mobility, perpetual abundance of bigger and better goods...the culture of advertising, of course, is nothing other than the creation of Fantasy Magicland, and those who have never bothered to contrast reality with Fantasy Magicland will be the people likely to suffer the most emotional trauma from having to make the necessary adjustments to a world where Perpetual Abundance no longer exists.
Any politician who fails to sell the Fantasy Magicland vision to voters doesn't have a chance. We want our politicians to assure us that the future will be nothing but Onward and Upward, yet we despise politicians as liars and crooks.
Although many people are nervous about the immediate future, I think there's an underlying belief in most that it'll just be a temporary downturn-- you know, "business cycles" and all that. What isn't figured into the equation is the absence of one key resource on which our entire civilization depends...
You're not going to convince me that a nation of nearly 300 million people will be able to make a rapid adjustment (could be 5 years, could be 30) to life without adequate supplies of petroleum-- not only the supply of gas will be affected, of course: we're talking about fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, and countless other necessities.
So you can either drink (or similarly abuse) yourself to death, or further indulge in Fantasy Magicland, or you can start to seriously consider other ways to exist. Even greater political vigilance is required: the overwhelming majority of politicians are fully bought and paid for by corporate interests, obviously, so the only solution is voter vigilance. I don't know what else to do about that.
On the plus side, I just signed up online to join the Solar Living Institute's e-mail list. I might make a visit up there soon (it's in Hopland, California, roughly 100 miles north of San Francisco). They have classes related to renewable energy (passive solar energy, food cultivation, and permaculture, for starters). Check out www.solarliving.org. We are going to have to prepare for life after car culture viability-- might as well prepare for some alternatives.
posted by Tom (a.k.a. "G-Man") at 2:03 PM
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