At last count before the event started, the RSVP on Facebook claimed that about 900+ people would be attending the ride to ‘Save Jarvis.’ But like anyone who has thrown a party and relied on Facebook to count the attendees, I figured that number would drop by at least a third as things came up … Continue reading »
Continue readingTag: environment
The Liberal Scarf: I’m offering an endorsement of what Mr. McGuinty has done, absolutely. This is a great plan. Any party would be foolish to talk about abandoning it"
That’s what David Suzuki had to say about the Ontario Liberal plan to keep Ontario’s economy on track by creating green jobs and helping our environment.http://www.thestar.com/mobile/news/canada/politics/article/1028008–suzuki-warns-tory-scheme-to-can…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Henry Farrell points out why supposedly progressive ideas which don’t do anything to counter corporate power are doomed to failure:Neo-liberals tend to favor a combination of market mechanisms and technocratic …
Continue readingthe reeves report: Ontario and Equalization Payments: ‘have-not’ actually means ‘has-no-oil’
In the two years since Ontario officially joined the ranks of the ‘have-not’ provinces, the volume of equalization payments received has jumped 534%. That’s right – 534%. From the first payment of $347M to this years whopping $2.2B – Ontario is officially suffering through a massive downturn brought on by the loss of almost 300,000 … Continue reading »
Continue readingredjenny: DIY, Homesteading, Radical Housewifery/Homemaking
Though I haven’t read the book yet, the lifestyle described in Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture by Shannon Hayes is kind of seductive. I’ve flirted with these ideas a bit. Screw the rat race and 70 hour work weeks (all in the attempt to make partner, or
Continue readingredjenny: DIY, Homesteading, Radical Housewifery/Homemaking
Though I haven’t read the book yet, the lifestyle described in Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture by Shannon Hayes is kind of seductive. I’ve flirted with these ideas a bit. Screw the rat race and 70 hour work weeks (all in the attempt to make partner, or
Continue readingredjenny: DIY, Homesteading, Radical Housewifery/Homemaking
Though I haven’t read the book yet, the lifestyle described in Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture by Shannon Hayes is kind of seductive. I’ve flirted with these ideas a bit. Screw the rat race and 70 hour work weeks (all in the attempt to make partner, or get an elusive tenure-track position or not get fired). Instead focus on a slower pace of life, gardening, baking bread, living close to nature, voluntary simplicity, reskilling etc.*
Mother Nature has shown her hand. Faced with climate change, dwindling resources, and species extinctions, most Americans understand the fundamental steps necessary to solve our global crises-drive less, consume less, increase self-reliance, buy locally, eat locally, rebuild our local communities.
In essence, the great work we face requires rekindling the home fires.
Radical Homemakers is about men and women across the U.S. who focus on home and hearth as a political and ecological act, and who have centered their lives around family and community for personal fulfillment and cultural change. It explores what domesticity looks like in an era that has benefited from feminism, where domination and oppression are cast aside and where the choice to stay home is no longer equated with mind-numbing drudgery, economic insecurity, or relentless servitude.
Radical Homemakers nationwide speak about empowerment, transformation, happiness, and casting aside the pressures of a consumer culture to live in a world where money loses its power to relationships, independent thought, and creativity. If you ever considered quitting a job to plant tomatoes, read to a child, pursue creative work, can green beans and heal the planet, this is your book.
I know and admire several people who I would class as radical homemakers/homesteaders/DIYers. Some off-the-grid, some minimally on it. Some with children, some without. Some with lots of land, some with tiny patches in the city. They pretty well all combine this with some sort of income generating work. I respect what they are doing. It’s hard work!
Indeed Not One More Winter in the Tipi, Honey (found with commentary over at Historiann) discusses gendered labour off-the-grid.
Too often, modern homesteading asks women to return to the toil so many of their grandmothers left behind. No matter how progressive the homesteading couple, the unfamiliarity and the physical demands of DIY living make it easy to fall into traditional gender roles — to retreat to the stereotypically masculine and feminine skills most of us still learn first and best. The result is that in many modern homesteads, despite highly evolved intentions, men build the houses, and women, like their pioneer-era counterparts, cook over the wood stove. Or scrub the floors. Or care for the babies.
This old-fashioned division of labor means that women are often the first to encounter the worst realities of homesteading. While their partners are outside, impressing the neighborhood with their construction skills, women are inside, confronting the cultural invisibility of domestic work and the social isolation of rural life.
Of course, this is a generalization. I’m sure many relationships are more egalitarian, but so many fall back into these gender roles. Though I think some work traditionally gendered female is beginning to be seen as admirable and even cool – cooking, baking, knitting and gardening were definitely not ‘cool’ when I was young. Young women tried to get AWAY (to be liberated) from doing those valuable yet unpaid (and therefore not contributing to GDP, and therefore having no official value) tasks. I’m not sure yet that toilet-cleaning has made it into the newly-cool category, but maybe it is just a matter of time.
I guess my question is: Is it really that radical for a woman to stay home and do what women have been doing for generations? Actually, it might be.
Which brings me to the feminist activist Radical Housewife blog (named with tongue-in-cheek), and a whole other way to be a woman who does not currently work for wages. One can still have a voice and be political and be a primary caregiver to children or a household. The danger is in supposing that simply “staying home” or dropping out of the paid work force will somehow automatically fix the world. Of turning completely inward and forgetting to be political. (Or confuse property rights with real human liberties.) Forgetting to fight for social justice and rights for others. Forgetting to be active in our communities. Becoming blinded by our own halos.
*I know, I know, it sounds so bourgeois and indeed it may require a degree of privilege (I suppose being minimally middle-class or at least upper-working-class) but I suppose there are worse things that one could DO with that privilege. (This reminds me of a similar discussion going on over here – Is minimalism just for the rich?)
Continue readingTrashy's World: Disasters! Events! As they happen!!!!
This is a map which supposedly tracks nasty shit happening in the world in real-time.
Earthquakes? Yup.
Floods? Oh yeah.
Forest fires? They’re hot on that!
Plane crashes? They’re DOWN!
Haven’t had chance to verify if it’s eve…
the reeves report: Parks Canada the Institution: Celebrating 100 years of Canada’s National Parks
No one can accuse Parks Canada of not pulling out all the stops to celebrate its 100th birthday in style. The Parks Canada website has been overhauled to reflect this important milestone; the establishment of the first urban new national park has been announced for Rouge Valley in Toronto; free parks passes have been granted … Continue reading »
Continue readingTrashy's World: Why was everyone surprised by the storm in Ottawa last night?
@OttawaDaddy pointed this out on Twitter this morning. I too am amazed at how few people used the Environment Canada radar site to see the storms approaching after receiving Twitter warning & retweets! Check it out. Easy to use, folks. This is what it showed this morning. The basics are: orange and red – bad. […]
Continue readingwmtc: what i’m reading: "moby duck" and the permanence of plastic
I’ve just started reading a remarkable book, one that can’t wait until I finish to share it with you: Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,000 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, including the Author, …
Continue readingTrashy's World: Interesting map…climate change laggards?
And, at face value, it shows quite vividly what fine company Canada keeps on this file. But, do use a bit of caution when interpreting this map literally. I haven’t been able to track down the report from whence this came so am unable to assess the robustness of the methodology used to reach these […]
Continue reading350 or bust: Go Big Or Go Small: Mapping A Sustainable Future For Ontario
Mennonite Central Committee Ontario (MCCO) is committed to caring for creation. As part of that commitment, they have produced a youtube video that they’ve entered in the Watts Next contest, which is inviting video submissions from across the p…
Continue readingTar Sands Supported by Wall Government
You can read the piece that landed in my Inbox this a.m., below. To summarize, “The Government of Saskatchewan has demonstrated its commitment to oil sands exploration and development.” Some additional info: Map: http://www.oilsandsquest.co…
Continue readingOn the Ontario PCs’ platform
[Sorry for the double-post. Had some unfixable errors in the previous version.]So, here we go with the Ontario PC Platform, the Changebook (warning: PDF). Or is that the Change Book? ChangeBook? I don’t know, and I don’t think they do, either.According…
Continue readingOn the Ontario PCs’ platform.
So, here we go with the Ontario PC Platform, the Changebook. Or is that the Change Book? ChangeBook? I don’t know, and I don’t think they do, either.According to this, Tim Hudak was a Customs Officer at the Peace Bridge. I knew there was a good reason …
Continue readingDeSmogBlog - Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science: ALEC Exposed: Center For Media and Democracy Details ALEC’s Industry-Friendly Legislation Machine
ALECexposedLogo_AProjectOfCMDflat.jpg
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has launched a new website, ALECExposed.org, to help consumers understand more about the secretive business group th…
Continue readingthe reeves report: Compromising on Bike Lanes at Toronto City Hall: Pt. II
Yesterday afternoon, when onlookers in the crowd spotted Ford staffers handing out voting sheets to ‘Fordnation,’ as the right wing of Council is known, we who were there to support bike lanes should have guessed the issue was dead in the water. The slim chance that cyclists and their advocates on Council had in retaining … Continue reading »
Continue readingthe reeves report: Fighting for Bike Lanes at Toronto City Hall: Pt. I
“Dammit. My phone died.” “You can use mine.” “That’s okay. I kinda knew it would happen. I didn’t have time to charge my phone today on my morning off. ‘Cause I spent it here.” Andrea Garcia, Advocacy Director with the Toronto Cyclists Union, had already had a long day when I left Council at 7:00 … Continue reading »
Continue reading350 or bust: Google On Why Renewable Energy Is On The Way, and Lubicon Cree On Why It’s Needed
Google is putting its substantial money where its mouth is on new energy technologies. From New Energy News: When the story of this moment in history is told, it will be about the huge numbers of people in emerging economies coming out of poverty and t…
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