The end of civilization as we know it

So my holistic moms group has been all atwitter (is atwitter one word or two? atwitter? a twitter?) about this speech given by Dmitry Orlov February 13, 2009, at Cowell Theatre in Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, to an audience of 550 people, called Social Collapse Best Practices or (as the Organic Consumers Association titled it) Getting Prepared for the Great Collapse.  I thought I’d share it with you.

What do you think of this?  Do you think its possible?  Or, more accurately, do you think it’s likely?  What if something like this does happen?  What will you and your family do?

Personally, there is a part of me (the part that likes action movies) that actually looks forward to this possible future.  But then theres a part of me (the part that gets sad when faceless, nameless characters in action movies die) that hates the idea of the senseless violence mentioned here.  Could I be a squatter, if need be?  Yes.  Could I claim a peice of ignored land to set up a community farm?  Yes.  Could I run an establishment like the health clinic mentioned in this speech?  Oh certainly yes (I’ve begun looking into midwifery training, by the way).  Could I have a donkey.  Yeah, that would be cool.  But could I hire a mentally unstable former cop or Soldier to commit violent acts on my behalf to intimidate people who get in my way?  I’m not down with that.

What do you think?  And what are you doing to protect yourself in this economy?

Reporting live from a national special security event

I know I said you wouldn’t hear from me while I’m doing the Guard thing, but here I am!

Okay, I haven’t been down around there much (and thank God! we don’t want to go downtown, because that means things have gotten violent down there) but I did go on a little run downtown yesterday, and let me tell you what I saw.

• I saw bike rickshaws and bike rental stations.  How awesome!  I hope these things stick around (at least the bike rental stations, I don’t know how useful bike rickshaws are going to be in the long term, but who knows?).  I can just picture it, I could take the light rail down town and then take a bike when I get there.  I’d never have to drive downtown again.  Denver is really working hard to be seen as uber green during this convention, so I really hope we keep it up.
• I saw cops on every corner.  Let me tell you, I don’t envy these guys jobs.
• I saw people peaceably exercising their first amendment rights.
• I saw people behaving in more negative manners, but nothing violent or destructive.
• I saw street corner carts selling cheapo Obama gear.
• I saw an excess of knock off designer purse street carts.

In other news, today my PA team engaged The Daily Show.  Yeah, the Daily Show.  It was pretty awesome.  Jon Stewart was not there, but I did get my picture taken with John Oliver.

Ripping off other publications (with credit, so its not plagerism, right?)

I read this today on the Yes Magazine website.  I think it is worth reposting and spreading around.

Has the cash economy swallowed up your life? Here are some ways to extract some of your time and “life energy” from the cash economy.

Reduce debt. If you can’t pay cash, don’t buy it. Practice being mindful about what you buy and why.

Do it yourself. Grow food, pick berries, can and preserve food, make wine, bake bread. Make or repair clothes, furniture, and gifts. Create your own entertainment. Walk, bike, run, or play basketball instead of joining a fitness club.

Share & Exchange. Take care of neighbor kids and elders. Play music, sing, act in local theater, write poems, hold art shows. Exchange haircuts for applesauce, bike repair for massage, language tutoring for babysitting.

Reduce waste & pollution. Weatherize your home or apartment. Reduce your car usage, or get rid of a car.

Buy local. Run buy-local campaigns, print stickers, publish or post a directory of local businesses. Acknowledge business owners who foster the well-being of the environment, employees, and the whole community. Convert public funds from luring outside corporations to supporting local businesses.

Start a new local business. Start a food market, credit union, wifi network, or even an electricity co-op. Explore ownership options like cooperatives, nonprofits, for-profits, or single proprietorships.

Buy Fair Traded when you buy imports. Vote with your dollar for a better world for all.

I’m home!

Actually, I got home Tuesday night but I’ve been too lazy to write.  Making a 900 mile trip with a six month old is no small task.  I needed to rest up.

First off, I want to say how saddened I am to hear about the passing of Tim Russert.  I literally just heard, and I am seriously, seriously sad.  Sunday mornings are never going to be the same again.  Was he even sick?  My CNN Alert did not tell me how he passed on, so I don’t know.  It just all seems so very sudden.  My prayers are with his family.

Next, I want to say that I feel bad for Missouri bashing.  Its not cool to bash on other people’s states, I get really offended when people bash on Colorado.  But, come on, the place has no sidewalks.  Its baffling.  I know it gets really hot there in the summer time, but I did see people walking and biking, and they have to do that on the sides of narrow, windy, hilly streets that are more often than not surrounded by thick, forresty growth, and thats just plain not safe.  While there seem to be almost no sidewalks anywhere in the state, they do have mile markers every .2 miles on their highways.  I don’t know if I want to live in a place where money is spent putting in a mile marker every .2 miles on the highway, but not on putting sidewalks on streets to keep people safe.  Unbelievable. 

Do you live in Missouri or a place like it?  How do you feel about your sidewalk situation?  Your public transportation situation?  Your bike lane situation?  Your mile marker situation?  I am struggling to understand why people are not completely outraged by what seems to me to be a massive misspending of tax dollars.  When peak oil gets bad St. Louis, and cities like it, are massively screwed.

There are a ton of things I was inspired to write about while I was gone, but I need to get organized before I can write them.  I just feel so scattered.  I can promise up coming posts about natural childbirth, co sleeping, natural household cleaners, and a few book reviews, to name a few.  In the mean time, here are some interesting things to check out.

This is a post from the Organic Consumers Association I just got around to reading today.

SOUTH KOREA BANS U.S. MEAT:
The South Korean government has responded to a rally last week involving more than 60,000 citizens protesting American beef imports. Major Asian markets have upheld a ban on American beef since the discovery of new cases of Mad Cow Disease in the U.S. raised consumer health concerns. Despite international pressure on the Bush Administration, the U.S. continues to ignore food safety concerns and violate World Health Organization guidelines by feeding slaughterhouse waste to animals and refusing to test all animals at slaughter for Mad Cow Disease. http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow.cfm

This is a cool website.  I’d love to do something like this around here.
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

Decode eco labels here
http://www.greenerchoices.org/eco-labels/eco-home.cfm?redirect=1

Besides that, here are the weekend plans.

I’m going to an Earth Fair tomorrow at Magna Carta Park in Denver.  I was going to go to Wool Market up in Estes Park, but the friend I was going to go with had to cancel, and to be honest, after the trip to Missouri I don’t know if I can afford to be driving up to Estes Park, so Earth Fair it is.  On Sunday I am going to be sad, because Tim Russert is no longer on Meet the Press.  On Monday, Elijah and I are going to visit a Hindu Temple in our neighborhood.  I’ve always wanted to go in there and see what the Hindu religion is all about.  I know a very little bit, that I learned in a Humanities class the semester before last, but I think it would be awesome to learn first hand.

Thats it for me.  Hopefully I’ll be a better blogger next week.

I have heart burn like a mo fo

Is that the proper way to spell mo fo?  Can anyone enlighten me?

Looking back, my first clue that I was pregnant should have been the sudden onset of heart burn.  At first, I had no idea what it was that I was experiencing.  I had never had heart burn before.  When I figured it out, I shrugged and thought “Well, I’m getting older”.  If only I had known what really was causing the heart burn.  Of course, if it were just the pregnancy, why do I still have heart burn now?  Why?

Anyway, my sister just informed us that she lost her mucas plug, so I might be disappearing sometime soon.  She had talked her doctor into scheduling some kind of induction like procedure in which she would be hooked up to some drip (not pitocin, she said, but something) to make her cervix efface in which she’d have to be strapped to a hospital bed for 12 hours, then they’d check her, then she’d wait for another 12 hours, etc.  It sounds not only miserable, but expensive.  Does she have any idea how much a 12 hour hospital stay costs?  And she pays 20% of her medical bills after deductable.  Not a choice I would make when I’m not even a week over due, but thats just me.  Not to mention all the risks of interventions such as this, and how it increases her liklihood of needing further interventions, eventually dramatically increasing her chances of getting a C section.  I worry about all this for her, but its her baby and her body and her choice, so I’ve been trying to be supportive.  She has PUPPP really bad, so I guess I can understand.

Of course, if she just lost her mucas plug, she may go into labor naturally before she gets the chance to be induced, and that would be great for her and the baby.  In the future, I will blog about natural birth and try to do it without sounding like one of those natural birth Nazis.  You can read the story of my natural birth here.

In other news, I’ve been working on finding a cure for Elijah’s seasonal allergies.  Its been a rough few weeks of noses too stuffy to nurse, followed by a few days of realization of common sense.  I needed to dust.  So I spent a good portion of the day yesterday dusting and vacuuming, which has already made a world of difference.  I still need to dust and vacuum my room, which is where Elijah sleeps, but I can already see an improvement in him.  It would be nice to get a HEPA filter vacuum, and even nicer to get rid of carpet all together (since carpet is a breeding ground for dustmites and the best collector of allergens known to man – not to mention a chemical nightmare, off gassing toxins and VOCs like there’s no tomorrow), but until then, I need to make it a point to be extra dilligent about dusting and vacuuming.  It helped my allergies also (after a temporary worsening during the dusting).

I’m looking into buying a bicycle used.  Craigslist seems to have a lot of bikes listed every day, so maybe with my next paycheck…  Also, looks like I can get a trailer for Elijah pretty cheap there too.  And maybe a bike rack for my car.  Yes, I’ll finally be one of those Coloradoans who looks really outdoorsy everywhere they drive.  I don’t want a rack on my roof though, for fuel efficiency reasons (that roof rack adds the most drag, from what I understand), and I certainly wouldn’t be riding around with my bike on my car all the time.  But it would be nice to have, wouldn’t it?

Finally, Indiana Jones and the Search for the Crystal Skull was no where near as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade, but it beat the hell out of Temple of Doom.  Even if the newest Indiana Jones was way more cheesey and even less realistic than Raiders and Crusade (yes, the newest one was less realistic, even, than the melting faces in Raiders), at least it didn’t have that irritating chick from Temple in it.  It was awesome to see it at the drive in, though, because I could eat a Qdoba burrito and nurse my son through the whole movie.  Bring back the drive in!

 

One more thing

If you guys want, you can check out my facebook page and my myspace page.  The myspace page is private, but send me a message and I can add you.  If you look at my facebook page, check out the group I started, People Before Cars in Denver, Colorado.

Now seriously, I’m going to go do something productive with my day off.  Like washing cloth diapers.  Yeah!

Finger crossing good

First of all, I want to thank all of you who apparently crossed your fingers for me.  Elijah slept for a little more than an hour yesterday, all by himself.  I was able to hang up clothes!

Second, they did not accept our offer on the house.  They gave us a number they would go no lower than, and it turned out to be too much for us.  I’m so sad.  It was such a nice house.  But we’ll keep looking.  Something is out there for us.

I’m hoping to find a place that is more in the center of suburbia, rather than on the edge of it.  I would like to minimize my driving as much as possible, so the closer I am to things like grocery stores and the light rail, the more I can get done on foot or on bike.  I am also hoping to find a place with a descent sized yard, that way I can have a descent sized vegetable garden.  Since you all crossed your fingers for me yesterday and it worked, would you all mind crossing your fingers for me again?

Let me know if you need any finger crossing back from me.

Why being green is so great for single moms

Okay, so some of my readers may have noticed that I blog much more about living green than I do about being a single mom.  This is partially because I’ve been an environmentalist much longer than I’ve been a single mom.  I’ve only been a single mom five months now (a little over a year, if you count my pregnancy in there – I wasn’t single through my entire pregnancy), but ever since I first read 50 Simple Things a Kid Can Do to Save the Earth in the 1st grade I’ve been passionate about our planet.  I don’t remember who gave me that book, either.

But another reason why I blog more about living green than I do about being a single mother is because I believe the two subjects are inseparable.  That is to say, of all the people living green has the most benefits for, single mothers are near the top of the list (our kids, I’m afraid, hold the top slot).

There are two main reasons for this.  First, most single moms don’t want to stay single forever, and second, most single moms can use all the help they can get financially.  Living green helps you to get and stay in great shape, which (unfortunately, we live in a shallow society that values looks over personality, education, success and kindness – particularly in women) helps you out in the dating department.  And living green, if done correctly, is much cheaper than living whatever color not green is.  Brown, like smog?  I don’t know.

A few examples:

Biking and walking are great exercise.  And the more you bike and walk instead of driving, the more money you save on gas, maintenance for your car, and you help the car keep its value better by keeping miles off the car.

Growing some of your own food will save you butt loads in groceries, especially with food prices on the rise.  The more you grow, the more you save.  Plus, eating more of those home grown fruits and veggies means less junk food, and gardening, like biking, is great exercise.  And for those of you who don’t have yards, just about anything can be grown on a pot on your deck, or even indoors, and if that doesn’t work for you, look into community gardening opportunities, which helps you to get out and meet people, potentially single men, or people who can hook you up with single men.

Planting native grass seeds means less watering and maintainance, saving you money on utilities.  Mowing that lawn with a push mower is great exercise and saves you on fuel for a power motor.  Keeping that lawn small minimizes water useage even more, and minimizes your time mowing.

Avoiding plastics minimizes your exposure to BPA, which can mimic estrogen in your system and cause you to gain weight or make the baby weight more difficult to use.  Using natural alternatives to things like drier sheets, glass cleaner, lotion, etc., will reduce your exposure to pthaylates, which have similar affects.  I’ll talk more about natural alternatives later, because buying green brands can be more expensive, but there are ways to do it even more naturally and more cheaper.

Not to mention how much doing these things increases your childs health, sets a good example for them to be physically active, pleasantly social, socially responsible, and helps to leave them a world thats sill nice.  Because the most important thing to single mothers, more than not staying single or saving money, is the health, well being, and happiness of our children.

A cute medium for great ideas!

Here is a comic series that I learned about on Green Couple today.  It is a cute little cartoon that deals with what we’re going to have to do to prepare for a life after peak oil.  I hope you all enjoy.

Luz

New Car, Urban Farming, Baby Wearing and Community

Well, I bought a car.  I really wanted a Yaris but it just wasn’t happening for me.  In fact, my only hope of getting financed was through GM, which I really didn’t want to do because of how GM works to oppose higher fuel efficiency standards, but it’s what I had to do because we unfortunately live in a society in which cars are a necessity.  — No Impact Man writes some great blogs on how we should develop towns and cities differently to make cars less necessary, see this one for some inspiration—

So I went with the Saturn Astra.  It gets decent mileage, has good pick up, lots of room for me and the baby and the stroller and all the crap you carry around with a baby and maybe some camping stuff, and it has all the swanky OnStar crap I swore I’d never own because it was pointlessly frivolous and now I have it and am tempted to call it up and ask for directions to restaurants we don’t have in this state, like White Castle and Pasta House.  But tell me honestly, did I get a mom car?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Mine is white, not silver.  Its a mom car, isn’t it?  When I got it, it didn’t look like a minivan, but in this picture it does.  Its supposed to be hot in Europe, or something, its sold as the Opel Astra there.  Just because I am a mom doesn’t mean I have to give it all up and start wearing mom jeans and driving a mom car. 

 

 

 

<—– Mom Jeans

 

 

Anyway, its an okay car choice, I suppose.  Not the greenest you could go, but probably the greenest I could go.  Let me tell you, they tried really hard to sell me the VUE, Saturn’s SUV, but I wouldn’t have it.  Not only would I feel totally hypocritical driving that car (I told the dealer “How can I drive this to a Green Party meeting?”), but what the hell is the point of an SUV that isn’t meant to go off road?  Seriously.  The “U” in SUV stands for utility.  I have far less a problem with SUVs if they are used for their intended purpose.  Hauling dirty, heavy stuff and going off road.  SUVs meant to look pretty for soccer mom’s usage is really just a minivan.  Even more so than my little Astra which only slightly resembles a minivan in pictures.

Remind me later to blog about how much it bugs me that we feel the need to have a tv in cars these days.

I am still going to get a bike and use that whenever I can instead of the car.  That will make me feel a little better about buying something so big and expensive from a company that supports lousy fuel efficiency standards.

Another thing that makes me feel better (not 100% better, mind you, nothing will make me feel 100% better about purchasing a car, not even a fuel cell car) is the new urban farming project/CSA I’ve become involved in.  Its called Sense of Colorado, and its a bunch of people around town growing large gardens in their back yards, and we all go help in them and pay 50 bucks a month and we get our share of the produce.  Its the first year they’re doing it as an organized CSA, so its kind of a risk, but I think its going to work out well.  Anyway, even if it doesn’t I love the concept of urban farming and am glad to support and learn about it.  Our failures this year are fantastic learning opportunities, and hopefully the organization will grow and become stronger each year.  There may be a story about it and a similar program which has been up and running for a while in Boulder in the Washington Post sometime here soon. 

If we have a surplus of veggies after we divvy out the shares, then we are thinking about running a farmers market in Five Points.  The people in Five Points cant afford to do some of the bigger farmers markets around town, like the one in Cherry Creek, Boulder or down town Littleton (check ‘em out if you can, though), so we thought it might be nice to do a more reasonably priced one on that end of town.  I like that idea also because I’ve been toying with the idea of selling low cost slings to low income moms (particularly single moms) who would not otherwise be able to afford any baby wearing apparatus – especially not fashionable ones.  I would do this by selling slightly more expensive slings to women who can afford to buy slings.  I’d charge cost of materials plus, say, $15 for the work for the women who can afford to buy slings, which is still a tremendous bargon compared to other slings.  The main material for the sling is three yards of fabric, but fabric is sold in sheets twice as wide as is needed, so when I get the three yards, I can cut them in half long ways and have the material for two slings!  I’ll use one half to make the full priced sling, and the other half to make another sling I’ll sell for, say, 10 bucks at the Five Points Farmers Market.  Then the women who buy the full price slings can also know that a portion of their proceeds go to providing low cost slings to low income single mothers.  I wouldn’t make much of a profit with this “business model” if you want to call it that.  We’re talking around 5 dollars profit per two slings made.  But profit is not the point.  Sharing the tremendous benefits of baby wearing with the world is the point.

And coming together as a community is the point.  Sharing food and getting in touch with where it comes from, rather than being removed and disassociated from what we put in our bodies.  Sustaining our own community from within is the point, rather than depending on communities thousands of miles away to provide us with necessities like food and fuel is the point.  And real, authentic relationships is the point.

I am excited about the opportunities this urban farming project presents for me to get to know new people, to get my hands in the dirt, and begin teaching my son where food comes from (because, like the commercials say, learning begins long before school).  And I’m excited that it might give me a chance to do some community service type work too.

And maybe this will satisfy my urge to farm.