Blog and general discussion

some more good info on the money issues facing younger people

feeds@yuku.com (lulugraphics) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:10:49 GMT

I hope this link works: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18675105&postID=4351804234733444315

it's the comment section for a question posed by housepanic.blogspot.com on May 26, 2008

HP'ers who are retired or over the age of 65 - what advice can you offer your fellow HP'ers?

oops, there's the...

Pressure to Conform

feeds@yuku.com (Grace79) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 07:05:58 GMT

I loved that student debt thread & it has taken me forever to get back here & reply to it. I felt like Lulu, it was an orgy of "food for thought." There is just so much to say there, it was getting hard for me to synthesize my thoughts & get them down. After reading & rereading everyone's posts there, I have a new question. For those of us already introduce to the "gateway drug" of student loans & trapped into the system how to take the first...

Nothing To Live On???

feeds@yuku.com (Grace79) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:43:26 GMT

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/CreateaPlan/RetireOnTwelveThousandDollarsAYear.aspx

LOL! This article is a very simplified idea of "communal" living, but I found it really interesting that even mainstream MSN.com is starting to address some realities of what is to come. Perhaps sharing (gasp, gasp) is a good way to make through rough times . . . if they come in the golden years or even before. These good ideas about spreading out shelter, food,...

dumpstering/living off the fat of the land

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:30:06 GMT

When I was a kid, we were called garbage pickers, and the best haul I ever got was a giant red and white bear that leaked styrofoam balls when I was 6. As an adult, the best haul we've gotten (my husband did the diving after driving my mother's car there) was a garbage bag full of dark chocolate bon bons. We gave bon bons to all of our friends for months & gained weight! When I worked at the local health food store, I was always taking home (pre-dumpstering) bread, milk, cream,...

Advice on Guns

feeds@yuku.com (Ran) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:01:46 GMT

I'm seriously thinking about buying a few guns. I'm not expecting a collapse so severe that we'll need guns to survive, but I can't rule it out. And I am expecting food prices to rise enough that I'll want to start hunting deer. Also, I was up on my land on Friday and that bear had come around and messed things up again.

So I'm asking for reader advice: 1) What's a good deer rifle? 2) How much harder is it to hunt deer with a bow, and what's a good...

climate destabilization

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:45:08 GMT

We spent the evening hunkered down in the basement, while funnel clouds went over the city in which we live. Our daughter was somewhat frightened, the memory of the last tornado hit two years ago quite fresh in her mind. We played hangman to pass the time. Luckily, no funnel clouds touched down. I was again thinking about global climate destabilization. No doubt, wild and terrific storms happen. But I think we have seen a lot, rather recently, not just tornadoes, but all kinds of weird...

what people are talking about: high prices

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:42:45 GMT

Warning, rant.

It seems everywhere I go, people are talking about how much gas costs and how much food costs. People everywhere I go are talking about gardening. It's strange for me to constantly be in conversations where I have something useful to say (mostly along the lines of "It's easy! Anybody can do it."). Gas here costs slightly less than it did a few days ago, $4.16 a gallon. That's an awful lot of money. I remember when $1.05 a gallon was the...

I felt like backsliding today

feeds@yuku.com (stereomouse) — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:56:36 GMT

Some of you thought that perhaps I was a little too hurt over what went on at the "female dropout" thread. It was not necessarily because I thought my own pride was insulted or anything. I just caught myself thinking:

What if this entire "dropout" movement is bunk? I suspected that a fair deal of you were elitist. Scoffing at any trappings of mainstream society and meeting anyone even with the subtlest of these trappings with suspicion. As if he was brainwashed....

infanticide/SIDS

feeds@yuku.com (lulugraphics) — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:55:00 GMT

I'd completely forgotten till I read this on ran's blog yesterday, violentacres had a post about SIDS a few months back with some examples about how it's frequently homicide. I seem to remember that fathers are implicated too. I'll see if I can find the link. I remembered being shocked, not by the homicide, but that I hadn't ever put the two and two together myself. Kind of another invented syndrome or disease pushed by the medical establishment to fund research or push...

Are female dropouts few and far between?

feeds@yuku.com (stereomouse) — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:18:18 GMT

In anti-work circles, males constantly complain that no woman wants anyone who does not have a job with a steady income or who really detests wage labor. There's an assumption that it's damn near impossible to attract a mate for a male social dropout. While it's tempting to sink into a victim mentality and sulk: "Boo hoo, I'm poor no-one wants me", I'm a little critical about this assumption.

Why is it assumed that only men are capable of...

food not lawns

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:33:13 GMT

We are just now starting up a chapter of food not lawns in our midwestern city. Has anyone here read the book by Heather Flores? I am just beginning it, but I find it really interesting and shocking and hopeful. I was sponsored to take a design course in permaculture last summer, and wanted to start a permaculture networking group here since. But it's kind of intimidating to be all "yes, I understand permaculture". Permaculture itself is wonderful, but there is so much to...

Natural Born Survivors

feeds@yuku.com (silverspringwoman) — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:32:51 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/02/communities.fossilfuels?gusrc=rss&feed=environment

The usual hand-wringy article but with one nice element: a mention of a book called a "Transition Handbook"" that is described as...

Bikes and kitty litter buckets

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:08:05 GMT

I was pleased to see the link for the kitty litter bucket bike panniers. We bought a bike bag last year at tax time, and it was $50! Outrageous! We got about two dozen kitty litter buckets from freecycle, originally for a worm bin project. Those things are so handy, and they don't break easy. I am looking forward to getting a couple on my bike--quite handy for trips to the artisan bread dumpster, I imagine.

We are in bike purgatory, though. My back wheel is flat, as the...

What are you doing about your student loan debt?

feeds@yuku.com (Grace79) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:17:25 GMT

I've been loving Ran's posts about the student debt situation/higher education. I know most of us probably don't like to admit it, but I assume that many, many of us have the issue to contend w/. So, how about it? What are you doing to deal w/ it? Has it been a struggle or were you really smart & somehow avoided it all together? Do you feel lied to or cheated? What are you saying to the next generation about it? (I know that a few of us around here counseled a younger...

drying laundry

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:47:28 GMT

I believe we may have used our dryer once or twice over the winter, but that's it for the last year. I love my clothesline. After reading the news article on the Laundry Underground that Ran posted, I am really glad to be living in the ghetto, where no one gives a crap if you have a clothesline. In cold weather, I dried clothes on a folding clothes rack and hung a few things on the shower pole. It works! I don't mind the towels feeling "like sandpaper", although they...

kombucha

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 04:54:23 GMT

In case anyone else is interested in kombucha, we have mothers coming out our ears, and would gladly pass them along. It's pretty tangy and tasty, and it makes you feel GOOD!

carey

Nice article about going on the "Dole" (unemployment)

feeds@yuku.com (silverspringwoman) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:18:50 GMT

It loops back around to dropping out http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=34682
Excerpt:

One of the most insidious things about working is "office ass"-that lateral expansion of your lower regions brought on by too many heavily-sugared coffees,...

The indomitable human spirit

feeds@yuku.com (silverspringwoman) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:14:18 GMT

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_makes_it_through_day?utm_source=slate_rss_1

goodbye roads

feeds@yuku.com (zombans) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:38:28 GMT

Loved this story from my today's paper (and hoping this link still works tomorrow): gaping potholes. I no longer own a car (thank goodness), but when I've traveled the roads in my town, they are in bad shape, no doubt as they are all over everywhere after this "perfect storm" winter (that phrase is getting old already). And asphalt, a petroleum byproduct, is more...

Eros

feeds@yuku.com (Doc Agape) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:01:11 GMT

I was reading Ran's post about his recent breakup. At some point back there he was born into a body, followed by an awareness of and identification with that body. The concepts of boy/girl, me/not me, right/wrong, light/dark gradually entered his mind. I'm not sure what the basic level of polarization is ... maybe protons and electrons. Anyway, I'm not sure this is something we can escape on the front end of this journey. He concluded that mom and dad are different.. they act...