The Road Show Must Go On
So I’m soon off to Blacksburg to run the parking permit gauntlet, then actually find a slot for the Subaru in the Great Academic Ant Hill of Virginia Tech. I’ll be heading off, once parked, to McBryde Hall. I know…
Category Activism
Earth on Empty
I pull away from the gas pump with the giddy sense that I can go forever now, the dashboard gauge full tilt to and beyond the F. Fat city! I am tanked up for the long haul, bro. I can forget…
What in Heaven’s Name?
You’ve looked over my shoulder in the past week or so as I’ve mused about the “History of Green” and wondered if Climate Chaos is a moral issue. In all this, you may share my dismay at the roaring silence…
Whole Foods and an Unprocessed Future
Caption: ink drawing of an old Floyd County barn by Fred, from photograph and instruction by Ron Campbell. While this decrepit and formerly-functional structure is more appealing than the metal building that will some day replace it, older is not…
Blogging Alone
Okay you people. Your feedback on yesterday’s post hijacked my before-coffee musings this morning and carried my keyboard fingers in another direction than the one I overheard them talking about all night long. And I tend to give them free…
Who Owns Humanity’s Future?
Unless remarkable things happen (and there are signs they might) it will be the fossil fuel industry that owns control of the future state and ultimate fate of the planet. That sounds like an exaggeration, but if you follow the…
Rx: Take When Discouraged
Sometimes I think the planet really might have a homeostatic righting mechanism that pushes back against our specie’s other side dominated by fear, selfishness, myopia, ignorance and megalomania. If it does, this is what it might be looking like in…
McKibben Walks the Talk
He fully expected to go to jail over his protest against the Keystone XL tar sands project and pipeline. He intended to put himself in harm’s way. And if you haven’t read about Keystone, be assured it will cause harm…
Earth’s Nine Lives
It is as if we are waking from a long, drugged sleep, from a dream we’ve perpetuated by will because the waking truth was both beyond our grasp to understand and beyond our willingness to accept. Now, we can no…
Okay Dumpa! You in Time Out!
Our visiting 3-yr-old grand daughter is not very tolerant of my slow responses when The Princess has needs not met immediately at her command. More than once, I’ve been sent to a quiet place where I can think over my…
Living Locally
What will it mean to shift from JUST IN TIME commerce to living well from what can be produced in a sustainable way within the local reach of a community like Floyd? Here are some component “building blocks.” They are…
Imminent Domain and Domestic Tranquility
Image via Wikipedia This morning’s first-cup-of-coffee browsing path has hijacked the light-and-fluffy topic I had thought I’d write about today. NOT looking at emails until 10am is probably a really good way of retaining some degree of control over one’s…
Shale, yeah, This is Important!
Image by fred1st via Flickr If you’re not current with the issues surrounding the drilling and “fracking” of horizontal bores into deep Appalachian shale for the purpose of methane extraction, it’s important that we become informed NOW so that public…
Are You Fiddling While Rome Burns?
I am all over the map these days–geographically, with far more airport time than I prefer–and scattered, too, in my poor abilities to draw a bead on a target for my time and energy. There are so many global-issue writing…