Act: Inspiration

Why sociopaths win & why, no, you don’t want to be one of them

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But here’s what I really want to say, as a psychologist, to all of you: Sociopaths lack something 95% of us have: They lack a conscience. They lack the capacity to feel empathy, to feel guilt, to feel bad about doing bad. When you lack Vitamin E(mpathy), you hate people who have it. You walk around with an expensive suit and you have a black card to pay for an expensive dinner, and you buy and sell people and marry the hottest mates around, but it’s all for nothing. You can’t attach to other people, even though you know it is something you should want to do.

Why gay marriage is good for everyone

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This weekend in the Washington Post, there’s an article about a couple who first met while serving in various capacities during WWII, who just celebrated their marriage in DC this weekend after a “62 year engagement.” This would be a romantic story in any context – but it isn’t a story of parted lovers who finally found each other again after decades apart. Instead, it is of two men who have lived a life almost wholly together, sharing work, family and community, but who lacked legal and social recognition.

Live dangerously: 10 easy steps

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When I first released Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, I was advised to make a list of “easy steps for becoming a radical homemaker” as part of my publicity outreach materials. My shoulders slumped at the very thought: Three years of research about the social, economic, and ecological significance of homemaking, and I had to reduce it to 10 easy tips? I didn’t see a to-do list as a viable route to a dramatic shift in thinking, beliefs, and behaviors.

Peak Moment 174: The power of neighbors

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Jan Spencer didn’t stop with a permaculture makeover of his suburban home in Eugene, Oregon. Now he’s taking on the neighborhood! Jan Spencer didn’t stop with a permaculture makeover of his suburban home in Eugene, Oregon. Now he’s taking on the neighborhood! As a result, his neighborhood association is teaming up with city programs like Neighborhood Watch and Emergency Response to empower neighbors to work together. They’re transforming lawns and abandoned lots into edible gardens, and sharing knowledge about energy efficiency, permaculture, and preparedness. These grass roots endeavors help people feel more secure in their homes, because they’re connected with neighbors they can rely on.

Wine, local food, and local resilience, Part 4

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In this series’ previous post, we discussed making wine at home as a possible solution to wine availability in an age of declining cheap energy. In this the final post of this series, we will discuss in some detail the advantages of home grape growing and wine making. Along the way, we’ll mention organic viticulture methods and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of specific grape varieties that might be considered for a home vineyard.

Creating a post-peak future you will want to live into

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The future most people are living into is beginning to disappear. The financial crisis threw the first punch, but oil depletion will deliver the knockout blow. The moment people realize that the society they have known their whole life can no longer function the same way without the energy provided by oil, it will become glaringly apparent that the future will be very, very different.

The Trillium Patch: wine, local food, and local resilience, part 3

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Gene Logsdon writes that his inspiration for home wine making is not the large industrial-scale wineries of California or the commercial cellars of Europe, both of which produce high-quality wines, but the back yards of German and Italian immigrants in American cities from the late 1800s through much of the 20th century. They would make wine out of “everything from rhubarb to dandelions, but especially Concord and Delaware grapes” (Logsdon 78). I believe Logsdon has observed something valuable and useful that will allow the production of quality wines to continue in eastern North America after cheap energy is no longer available. I want to explore this idea here in Part 3.

An inside view on the 2010 Transition Network conference, by Sophy Banks

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Many of those who attended the recent Transition Network conference remarked on how well facilitated the event was, and on the group process run on the Sunday. Although the event was designed to feel as self-organised as possible, there was a great deal of intentional design behind the event, much of which was the work of Sophy Banks (see left). In the following piece, Sophy explains the thinking behind how the event was facilitated, and offers tips for those wanting to organise similar events.