“The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man … is sordidness.” So says Captain Ahab of Moby Dick. And Melville was right. This is what we are fighting. We are fighting the manufactured condition of man, and attempting to regain our true nature. That is not romanticism by the way,
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The Disaffected Lib: When Overshoot Meets Inequality
Tuesday marked Earth Overshoot Day, 2014. August 19th was the day by which humankind had consumed an entire year’s production of renewable resources. Overall that means we’re using resources more than 1.5 times the rate at which the Earth can replace them. EOD is a moving target that, unfortunately, keeps
Continue readingPostArctica: How Climate Change Will Kill Us in the Dumbest Possible Way
Couldn’t agree more, stupid is our our story to the end… AKIRA WATTS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT When we’re not actively engaged in killing each other, watching TV, or occupied in other such entertaining diversions, one of humanity’s favorite hobbies is imagining that we live in the end times, with
Continue readingPostArctica: How Climate Change Will Kill Us in the Dumbest Possible Way
Couldn’t agree more, stupid is our our story to the end… AKIRA WATTS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT When we’re not actively engaged in killing each other, watching TV, or occupied in other such entertaining diversions, one of humanity’s favorite hobbies is imagining that we live in the end times, with
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Reflections on Chartres Cathedral, the death of civilization and the deification of the banal
Thinking of Chartres Cathedral, I ask myself, what, if anything, have we built in the past eight centuries, that compares to this? The iPad, computers, cell phones, the internet? Are you kidding me? You must be joking. We have more ways to amuse ourselves, yes, but when has our
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The rise of Bitcoin: and the challenge to the global domination of big money
The following article was written on October 25. I wanted to read it over once more before publishing it, then got busy with other things and forgot about it. In the roughly six weeks that have passed since the writing of this article, the Bitcoin prices have gone from roughly
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: NAFTA, “Free Trade” and the TPP: Fast-Track To Full Corporate Rule
“Twenty years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law. At the time, advocates painted a rosy picture of booming U.S. exports creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and economic development in Mexico, which would bring the struggling country in line with its wealthier northern
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Mexico City: A study in impermanence, and a lesson to us all
pablo lopez luz photographs the concrete waves (or carpet, as he puts it) of Mexico City The unbelievably sprawling concrete carpet of Mexico City seen in these photos make me think… Gorgeous country, beautiful culture and people, horrible government, amazing capital city – but utterly unsustainable, as most cities
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Are we alone? More importantly, are we even awake?
The “man the life boats and head for the stars” answer to our present human dilemmas is simply delusional. We can and should explore space, but if we don’t get our act together here on this planet immediately, we’re dead – extinct: plain and simple. A recent book seems once
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: US government shutdown, and other fairy tales and political theatre
I’m not sure what to make of the hoopla going on in the US right now. I’m inclined to think it’s all just political theatre, as Gerald Celente calls it, designed to distract the people from the real issues – the central one being, who controls the government and the
Continue readingPostArctica: Friedlander’s Car Windows
A good friend of mine recently showed me some photographs she took from an airplane window and the window frame was included in many shots and it, of course, reminded me of Lee Friedlander’s Hassleblad pictures from inside his car. This last one is particularly devastating. A sculpted cactus, in
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The real reasons for threats of war against Syria
(that the mass media won’t tell you about) 1. The Middle East holds 60% of the world’s remaining energy reserves: therefore, the entire region is critical to control – for anyone with an empire fetish, that is. And if you’re serious about controlling the Middle Eastern oil reserves, then you
Continue reading350 or bust: TED Talk Tuesday
As the world faces recession, climate change, inequity and more, economist Tim Jackson delivers a piercing challenge to established economic principles, explaining how we might stop feeding the crises and start investing in our future.
Continue readingPostArctica: Arctic sea ice time bomb ticking: the bang’s gonna be huge
by Gareth on July 24, 2013 Reading this press release about a new paper in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology spoiled my day. It might not be obvious to a casual reader just glancing through the morning news — but a couple of paragraphs leapt out at me: Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations
Continue readingPostArctica: American Nomads
Beneath the America we think we know lies a nation hidden from view – a nomadic nation, living on the roads, the rails and in the wild open spaces. In its deserts, forests, mountain ranges and on the plains, a huge population of modern nomads pursues its version of the
Continue readingPostArctica: The Great Arctic Flush
The Great Arctic Flush By Paul Beckwith A massive cyclone is forecast to develop in the Arctic, as shown on the image below, from the Naval Research Laboratory. Within 2 weeks the Arctic Ocean will be completely transformed. The cyclone that appears 6 days out on both the US and
Continue readingcalgaryliberal.com: Alberta In Open Revolt
Allison Redford has a problem. Between mayor Mandel unleashing his fury on her government and the University of Alberta’s rage at the province’s letters of expectation progressives across the province are finally coming to see that Redford is simply not on their side. For the Liberals who saw that supporting
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: Corruption Probe Just Keeps Scoring
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows – Bob Dylan C’mon, tell us how you voted for Tremblay again and again and how much you thought he was a good mayor – Neath Turcot Union Montréal manager was on engineering firm’s payroll CBC News Posted:
Continue readingBoreal Citizen: Bagel on a string: Collapse and the case for simplicity
When we talk about complexity, resources and economic decline, it seems we’ve learned nothing from history. In his talk in Barcelona, [Joseph] Tainter gave the example of the Roman Empire during the 3rd century A.D. At that time the empire faced a serious military crisis: invasions of foreign peoples and
Continue readingWalking Turcot Yards: Home
This is where we come from and what we are doing. It’s not nice, it is mindboggingly stupid. Maybe it all just boils down to brain chemistry, one insanely little microscopic flaw that prevents us from really seeing anything at all…
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