What’s the Mission?
We watched a documentary last night — THE END OF SUBURBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream. It’s very interesting, and some of what they predicted (the movie came out in 2004) has already happened. But here’s one takeaway for me. There’s another reason for buying local, besides just feeling good about [...]
I tried to read Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, but couldn’t get into it, and I don’t think I really agree with all of his philosophy anyway. However, the following passage caught my eye before I stopped reading. It’s about our growth-based economy: The unchecked striving for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and [...]
The current capitalist approach to business says that growth is good. Corporations and other businesses are supposed to grow every year, sell more products, provide more services, and earn more money. I say that’s not sustainable. How could it be? How can we possibly expect infinite growth? But aside from growth being unsustainable in the [...]
With the new national jobless rate at 9.5%, critics are saying that President Obama’s economic stimulus package isn’t working. That’s highly debatable. It could be that it’s really not working. It could be that the federal stimulus is keeping things from being much, much worse. I’m not sure how you’d measure that. Regardless of this [...]
If you’re a regular reader, you’re probably not surprised to find that I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. It’s not just some knee-jerk reaction for me, though. I know Wal-Mart has changed or improved some of their environmental and human resources practices. I know people who work there and have no problems. I know people who [...]
I’m getting really tired of reading articles about how to save money, tighten your belt, etc., because of the recession. Every article pretends to have new, useful information for you, and every one has the same tired old shit that I’ve been doing for years (or at least they’re ideas that I considered and discarded [...]
Not my budget this time, but the state of Oregon’s budget. The news yesterday and today says that Oregon has an $800 million shortfall in this year’s budget, which has to be balanced before the legislature can work on and approve the next budget. Apparently the state says there will be cuts across the board, [...]
It’s January 30, and the last thermometer I saw said it’s 37 degrees, but it really is time to start thinking about gardening again. For me, this is complicated by the fact that we’re thinking about moving (not out of Portland, just someplace cheaper and/or possibly a different neighborhood). So I don’t want to put [...]
