As if he could peer into the future, Henry David Thoreau is credited with the expression: "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." Herein I present a few recent examples of obedience at home. This essay is hardly comprehensive, and the hits keep coming, so this essay represents a minor start to a major issue. I'm certain many more … [Read more...]
In the low-tech future, looking sharp, or not
With a sufficient supply of water and food secured, the next item on the list of basic material needs is clothing. The primary function of clothing is to keep us warm, and its secondary function, at least in our state of society, is to cover nakedness. However, those functions are all but forgotten in consumer societies today, where clothing’s purpose has evolved to become … [Read more...]
Voluntary poverty — it could save your life, but what a hard sell
Poverty is finding middle class families these days these days through unemployment, bankruptcy and home foreclosure, whether they like it or not. And mostly, they don't like it. But John Michael Greer, author of this year's The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered and several previous books on surviving peak oil, suggests that those who haven't found poverty … [Read more...]